COPYRIGHT EDITION". 



THE 



rmu 0f iljc lUtonuit: 



ORGANIZATION, ITS COMMANDER, 

AND 

ITS CAMPAIGN. 



FYinc.ois Ve.Td\^a^Q 'phrii^-oe Lo\A,is MaT'.e d'UrUanij 

THE PrJNCE DE JOINYILLE. 

QJransIatclJ from tf)c jFrcutfi, 

WITH NOTES, 
By WILLIAM IIENEY HUKLBEET. 



NEW YORK: 
ANSON D. F. EANDOLPH, 

No. 683 BROADWAY. 
1S63. 






Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1862, 
AN SOX D. F. KANDOLPU, 

Id the Clerk's Oflice of the District Court of the United States for the Southern 
District of New Yorl£. 



EIMVAIM) It. .IKNICIX.S. 

^riiitrr aiiO .Stcrtolgprr, 
No. 20 N'Jinii Wii.i.iAU St. 




i^ ^ 



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The article of which the following pages are a translation ap- 
peared in the number of the Revue des Deux Mondes for October 
15th, 1862. It is there entitled " Campagne de I'Armee du Poto- 
mac, Mars-Juillet, 1862," and bears the signature of "A. Trog- 
non." It is well understood in Paris that this signature is the 
nom de plume of one of the princes of the House of Orleans, and 
from the internal evidence afforded by the paper itself I have 
been led to believe that it Avas probably written by the Prince de 
Joinville, who accompanied his nephews, the Comte de Paris and 
the Due de Chartres, throughout the period of their service in 
the Army of the Union, and that it was composed upon the data 
furnished by the journals of one or both of those princes, collated 
with his own observations and recollections. I have accordingly 
accepted the well-authenticated rumor which ascribes its author- 
ship to him. I have also taken the liberty of affixing to the 
translation a title which more fully describes the scope and 
nature of the paper. As the reader will perceive, it is a critical 
and historical sketch of the rise, progress, character and fortunes 
of the army which was assembled at Washington for the invasion 
of Virginia, from the time of its first organization in 1861, down 
to the end of the campaign before Richmond in 1862. 

It is written with the freedom and force of an accomplished 
military man, anxious to do justice to the merits and to point out 
the defects of an army which he has studied in the camp and in 
the field ; master of his subject ; temperate in tone, and in stylo 
equally free from the carelessness of the amateur, and the ped- 
antry of the professional soldier. 

Recent events have given a peculiar importance to the facts 
here presented, and it will not be easy for any candid person to 
read these pages without feeling that the causes of the military 
misfortunes which will make the year 1862 so painfully remark- 
able in our history demand the fullest and most searching inves- 
tigation. 

(8) 



4 PREFACE. 

The faihiro of the Army of the Potomac to acliieve either of 
the grainl iinincdiate objects which it moved from before Wash- 
iugton in ^larch to effect, tlie disj^ersion, namely, of the main 
confederate army under General Johnston and the occupation 
of liichmond, has been variously attributed : 

1. To the constitutional unfitness of General McClellau for the 
conduct of operations reipiirins^ boldness in the conception and 
decision in the execution. 

2. To tlie jircsumed l)ias of tliat commander's political opinions. 
Those who adopt tliis tlieory of the origin of our reverses, charge 
upon General ]McClellan that he has always sought to avoid 
driving tlie insurgent States to the wall, in the belief tliat the 
soothing influence of time and the blockade would eventually 
bring them to accept terms of reconciliation and reunion. 

3. To the constant interference of an "Aulic Council" at 
"Washington with the plans of our commanders in the field, 
an interference which wlicn it does not positively interrupt the 
progress of operations actually begun, by depri\ing a general of 
some portion of the force on wliich his calculations were based, 
must still greatly cripple his eiliciency by making it incompatible 
with common prudence for him to take serious risks and essay 
adventurous covnbinations. 

4. To the superior military abilities of the Southern command- 
ers enabling them to outmanoeuvre our leaders and to accumulate 
overwlielming forces upon the separate armies of an array in the 
aggregate greatly outnumbering their own. 

Tlie testimony under these different heads of the Prince de 
Joinville may be thus summed up : 

1. The Prince de Joinville testifies that General McClellan's 
original plan of campaign was in the highest degree direct and 
aggressive. 

This plan -was formed at a time when the command of the 
waters of Virginia was entirely in our hands, and it involved so 
r.i\)\(\ a concentration of tlie federal forces at a point AV'ithin 
striking distance of Richmond as must have been followed either 
by the evacuation of that city or by a decisive action in the field. 
lie tx'stifies also that when by the sudden and formidable advent 
of the Merrimat" and by the retreat of Johnston from Manassas 
w|»'>n Itichmond and ^'orklown, this <M-igiiial i)lan w:is made 
inipiacrticable, (ieneial MrCIellan conceived a second plan for 
turning tlie position at Yorktown, which was also direct and 
aggressive in its character, aii<l which was made impracticable 



PREFACE. 5 

by the sudden withdrawal of the corj^s cVarmee necessary to its 
execution. 

In respect to the operations of McClellan before Riciimond, he 
testifies that it was the intention of that general to follow up his 
arrival upon the Chickahominy by an immediate assault in com- 
bination with the army of McDowell, and that this intention was 
defeated by the complete separation of that army from his own 
in consequence of orders sent to McDowell from AVashington. 
He gives it as his opinion, however, that greater activity and 
more rapid aggressive movements on the part of General McClel- 
lan during the months of May and Jmie and at the battle of Fair 
Oaks, might possibly have resulted in the fall of Richmond, but 
this opinion he qualifies by intimating that the disposition of the 
General to instant action was curbed and dampened during that 
time by the influence of the checks previously imposed upon the 
development of his strategy ; and he ascribes the final extrica- 
tion of the Army of the Potomac from a position which had be- 
come untenable, to a movement in an extraordinary degree deci- 
sive and audacious. 

2. Writing after a familiar intercourse of months with the Gen- 
eral-in-Chief of the army, in which he must necessarily have im- 
bibed his leading views in respect to national policy, the Prince's 
language makes it more than probable that General McClellan. 
earnestly believed a prompt and decisive victory over the confed- 
erate army to be the surest if not the only means of securing the 
restoration of the Union, and that so believing, he thought it 
essential that a conciliatory temper towards the Southern people 
should precede, accompany and succeed the victory of the sword. 

3. Tlie Prince de Joinville asserts distinctly that the interfer- 
ence of the Government with the plans of General McClellan was 
constant, embarrassing, and of such a nature as finally to make it 
next to impossible for that General to risk the safety of the army 
imder his charge in any extensive operation the success of which 
was not substantially assured in advance. 

4. The Prince's account of the retreat of McClellan from Rich- 
mond shows that he considers the confederate Generals to have 
been completely out-manoeuvred and out-witted at that time by 
their adversary, whose concentration they did not comprehend in 
time to prevent it, and whose escape they were not able to inter- 
cept although superior to him in numbers and in knowledge of the 
country, fighting within sight of their base, and supported by the 
active good will of a wliole population. 



6 PRKFACE. 

So i-iiiis tlio evideni-e upon these four points of a witness M'hose 
competenc'v and inii>artiality we have certainly no riglit or reason 
to impearh. He may liave been misinformed ; uninformed, the 
responsil)ihty which lie assumes in publishing his narrative forbids 
us to supi)Ose he can have been. 

Until the publication of authentic ofhcial documents, tlie i)aper 
here submitted to the reader must be considered to be the fullest 
and fairest story of the great Campaign of 18G2 yet given to the 
■world. As such it should receive the most serious attention. 
The reputation (>f any one man or set of men is a slight thing in 
comjiarison Avith the success or failure of the nation in a war of 
life and death. If the Prince de Joinville's statements can be 
proved incorrect and his inferences unsound ; if General ]\IcClel- 
lan be really responsible by reason of his military incapacity or his 
political theories for our great disappointments, then it will be 
much for the nation to forgive him the j^ast and forget him in the 
future. 

If the Prince's statements be proved correct and his inferences 
sound, they must be regarded as a substantial indictment of the 
Administration in respect to its management of the war ; and the 
removal of General ]McClellan from the command of his army in 
the fielil must be pronounced a sign of evil omen on which too 
much stress can hardly be laid. 

I believe the present translation, although rapidly made, will 
not be found inaccurate. I have ventured to append to it a few 
notes upon subjects connected with the condition of things at the 
South, in respect to which I liad reason to believe myself more 
fully and correctly informed than the circumstances of the author 
permitted him to be. 

W. IT. II. 

New York, Xov. 15, 18G2. 



Note— Since the first edition of tliis translution was issued, I have received au- 
thority from Iiri(iadier-Oen<Tul Harry, Chief of Artillery of the Army of the Potomac, 
to correct the writer's stutwiient ia rejiard to the loss of Kuns on the retreat from Rich- 
mond (p. O.-J). Instead of tliree, the army lost but one sioge-gun, an S-inch howitzer, 
the cnrriage of w)iich broke down. No feature of this extraordinary retreat reflects 
bi(?iii-r credit upon the army liian this brilliant achievement of the artillery service 
•nd itM chief; and an the most extravagant falsehoods upon this point have obtained 
credunce and circulation abroad, I lake a particular pleasure in here recording the 
truth, conlident that no man out of ii; erica will more heartily rejoice in it than the 
••Hhor whom I urn thus euubled to bc ight. 



THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 



MiLiTAET events succeed each other rapidly in America, 
and the public follows them with an attention which is all the 
more anxious that it does not always understand them, partly 
through lack of knowledge of the organization of American 
armies and of the character of their commanders and their 
soldiers ; but above all, through the difficulty of getting at 
the impressions of persons who, being competent to observe 
these memorable struggles, actually took part in them them- 
selves. 

The pages here offered to the reader, will perhaps meet this 
legitimate public curiosity. They are the sum and setting 
forth of the notes of an officer, who took part in the last bat- 
tles in Yirginia, and wdio has never ceased to watch and fol- 
low up the grand operations of the war, in respect to which, 
he will, no doubt, give us new details ; our duty is simply 
to gather up and group the impressions and the recollections 
scattered through the numerous letters, and the private jour- 
nal of the officer in question. 

I. 

Cl^e Creatmit jof % S^rmg. 

On my arrival in America, the curtain had just fallen on 
the first act of the secessionist insurrection. The attack on 
Fort Sumter by the people of Charleston, had been the pro- 
logue, then came the disaster of Bull Run. The army of the 



8 TUE ARMY OF THE TOTOMAC. 

South was encamped witliiu siglit of AYasliington. "Worka 
of deteiK-e Avere hastily thrown np around tliat Capital. Tlic 
roar of the cannon was heard from time to time along the 
front of the line. Amid these commotions the army of the 
Potomac came into being. 

Up to this time, the Federal Crovernment, taken by surprise, 
had only hit in haste upon certain provisional measures wliich 
aggravated instead of dissipating the danger. All the advan- 
tages, at the outset of the insurrection, were with the insur- 
gents. Tliey were ready for an armed conflict, the North was 
not. In truth the work of secession had been lojig jDreparing. 
Under the pretext of a military organization to repress 
slave insurrections, the States of the South had created 
a permanent militia, ready to march at the first signal. 
Special schools had been founded in which the sons ot 
the Slaveholders imbibed the inspiration of those good 
and bad qualities which combine to form a race of sol- 
diers. Meanwhile, the northern man, reposing with confidence 
upon the regular operation of the Constitution, remained ab- 
sorbed in his own aftairs behind his counter. Tlie national 
army of the Union belonged almost entirely to the men of the 
South. For many years the Federal power had been in their 
liands, and they had not failed to fill, with creatures of their 
own, all the departments of its administration, and especially 
the war office and the army. Mr. Jeft'erson Davis, long 
Secretary at War, had dcme more to accomplish this than any 
other single man. 

Tlie disj)osition of the northern people facilitated his task. 
Among the laborious and still somewhat puritanical populations 
of Xew England, tlie career of arms was looked upon as that 
of an idler. The ^Vest Point Academy enjoyed no great con- 
sideration in that j)art of the country, and the heads of fami- 
lies were by no means an.\ious to send their sous to it. Finally, 



THE ARMY OP THE POTOMAC. 9 

on the eve of the crisis wliicli was to follow Mr. Lincoln's 
election, Mr. Flojd, now a General among the secessionists 
and then war Secretary nnder Mr. Buchanan, had taken pains 
to send to the South the contents of all the Federal arsenals, 
and to despatch the whole of the regular army to Texas, put- 
ting between the army and Washington the barrier of the 
slave States, in order to paralyze the sentiment of duty which 
might lead the soldiers to follow that small number among 
their officers who should remain loyal to their flag. Nothing 
accordingly was lacking in the precautions taken by the Con- 
federacy. They had dealt with the navy as with the army. 
It was dispersed at the four corners of the globe. 

As to the North, it did just nothing. Yet it had not want- 
ed warnings. For many years Secession had been openly 
preached. A curious book called the " Partisan Leader," pub- 
lished twenty years ago, is a proof of this. Under the form 
of a novel this book is a really prophetic picture of the war 
which is at this moment desolating Virginia, a picture so 
highly colored as easily to explain the ardor with which the 
imagination of the Creole ladies has espoused the cause of the 
South. But it was believed in the JSTorth, as in various other 
places, that " all would come right." The North felt itself the 
stronger, and saw no reason for troubling itself prematurely. 
It was the old storj'- of the hare and the tortoise. Moreover, 
in the last resort, the North counted on the several hundred 
thousand volunteers set down in the almanacks as represent- 
ing the military force of the country, and supposed by the 
popular mind to be irresistible. The North was quickly un- 
deceived. The people of the South were beaten in the presi- 
dential election. They were still masters of the Senate, and 
it was not the loss of power which roused them, it was the 
wound inflicted on their pride. This was used by the ambi- 
tious managers of the party of Secession to excite the South- 



10 THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 

era mind, and the standard of the insnrreetioii was raised 
The IV'dc-ral ]>owor, still jiassive, allowed the ]ieriod for com- 
proiiiisCj the period for conciliation, :ind the })eriod for ener- 
getic and instantaneous repression to roll by alike nnimproved. 
On both hides the kStates begin to arm for tlie inevitable strife ; 
but the South has the warriors, the arms, the organization, the 
will and the passion. The North is im])otenteven to i)rovision 
Fort Sumter, and the volunteers raised for three months, as if 
that was to Ije the limit of the campaign, get themselves beaten 
at Bull Run, not through want of courage, for the instances 
of individual valor were numerous; nor yet through the fault 
of General ]\[cDowell, who commanded them, and whose 
plans deserved success, but through the absence of organization 
and of discij>line. 

After ]>ull Uun there was no room left for illusions. A 
great war was bef(:)re the country. Intoxicated with pride, 
encouraged by all those who for one or another reason wished 
ill to tiie United States, the South it was plain would never 
again consent to return to the Union until it should have suf- 
fered severe I'everses. 

The ho])es of its andjitious leaders were more than realized. 
They had struck a successful vein, and nothing could make 
them abandon it. At the North, on the other hand, humiliation 
had opened all men's eyes. It was felt that, having on their 
side, with the su])eriority of population and wealth, the right 
and the legality of the question — having the sacred trust of 
the Constitution to defend against a factious minority, which 
after all, oidy took up arms to extend slavery — they would 
become a by-word for the world if they did not resist. Tliey 
Iclt, besides, that if the doctrine of Becession were once admit- 
ted and sanctioned, it wuuld be susceptible of inhnite appli- 
cation; that, from one rujiture to another, it would bring 
ttb(jut a cha(»s which must very soon oi)en the way to despo- 



THE AEMY OF THE POTOMAC. 11 

tism. They felt, in short, that it was chimerical to suppose 
that two Powers could live side by side in peace who had 
not yet made real trial of their respective strength — who 
were separated radically, notwithstanding their common 
tongue and origin, by the institution of slavery — the one wish- 
ing its development and the other its abolition — who were 
separated, also, by interests which no Custom House line 
could conciliate, and by the impossibility of regulating, with- 
out daily quarrels, the numerous questions connected with the 
navigation of the Western rivers. All these reasons, obvious 
to every mind, added to the pain of wounded self-love, and 
to the novelty of a warlike movement in that land of peace, 
resulted in setting on foot the immense armament with which 
the Northern States have up to this day sustained the war 
against the powerful efforts of Secession. 

Let us pause here before passing on to the numerous criti- 
cisms that we shall have to make, to admire the energy, the 
devotion, the spirit of courageous self-denial with which the 
population of those States — rather leading the Government 
than led by it — has of itself, and under the single impulse of 
its patriotic good sense, given uncounted men and money, sac- 
rificed its comforts, renounced voluntarily and for the public 
good, its tastes, its habits, even to the freedom of the press, 
and that, too, not under the influence of a momentary passion, 
not in a transport of transient enthusiasm, but coolly and for 
a distant object — that of national greatness. 

The North went seriously to work to create an army — a 
grand army. Seconded by public opinion. Congress resolved 
upon the raising of five hundred thousand men, with the 
funds necessary for the purpose. Unfortunately it could not 
command the traditions, the training and the experience 
requisite to form and manage such a military force. It was 
able to collect masses of men and immense material, as if by 
enchantment ; but it had not the power to create by a vote 



{•2 THE AKMY OF THE POTOMAC. 

£he t<pirit of discipline, of obedience, and that hieraicliical 
respect, witliout wliicli there may be armed crowds, but tlicre 
can \)c no army. Here is the reef upon which many gener- 
ous eflbrts have been dashed to pieces. Here is an original 
vice whose fatal influence we shall everywhere encounter. 
Wc shall discover the germ of this vice by a rapid examina- 
tion of the machinery which was used to improvise this first 
creation. 

According to American law the Federal Government 
nuiintains, in time of peace, a permanent regular army. It 
may, besides, in cases of necessity, war or insurrection, call 
to its standard as many regiments of volunteers as it may deem 
expedient. The regular army, formed by recruiting only, 
numbered 20,000 men before the secession. The ofhcers, 
educated exclusively at the military school, were remarkable. 
Well educated, versed practically in their profession, under- 
standing the necessity of absolute command, they maintained 
in their small force tlie most vigorous discipline. This was 
an excellent nucleus for an army, but the rebellion, as I 
have before renuirked, had brought on its dissolution. The 
greater part of the otiicers — more than three hundred — passed 
over to the South. The soldiers — all Irish or German — lost 
in the solitudes of Texas, were dispersed. From two to three 
thousand men, at most, returned from California or Utah to 
take j)art in the M'ar. This was chiefly important as bringing 
back a certain number of officers who might preside over the 
organization — such as it was — -of the army of volunteers about 
to be raised. In Europe, where we have learned to recog- 
nize the comparative value of the regular soldier, aiul of this 
costly and capricious amateur soldier, who is called a volun- 
teer, tlie loss of the aid ot' the regidar Army, small as it was, 
wtiukl liave brought us to despair, and we should have set to 
work to increase the army by enlarging its organization and 
"ncorpcuating recruits. An army of sixty thousand regulars 



THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 13 

would have done more than double or triple the number of 
volunteers ; but in America they do not know this, and be- 
sides, they do not wish to know it. It would involve a re- 
nunciation jf the general and deeply rooted creed, that every 
American, when he wishes to do a thing, may find within 
himself, without any a])prenticeship, the power to doit; and, 
consequently, tliere is no volunteer who, when he puts on the 
uniform, does not at the same time put on the qualities of a 
soldier. Add to this that the West Point officers, simply from 
the fact that they have received a superior education, and re- 
cognize the necessity of a hierarchy, are regarded as aristo- 
crats, and everything aristocratic is bad. Such officers were 
safe with the mercenaries who consented to obey them, and 
under their orders to keep the peace against the frontier 
tribes of Indians ; but to place under their command a great 
army, which must be reduced to the subordination of the 
camps, was to run the risk of grave political dangers. An 
eighteenth Brumaire is not to be made with volunteere. 
Therefore, everything having to be created, it was decided to 
create an array of volunteers — an ephemeral army, compara- 
tively inefficient, and, above all, ruinously expensive. The 
American volunteer is richly paid. His pay is $13 — more 
than 65 francs — per month. Besides that, an allowance of $8 
per month is paid to his wife in his absence ; and this, it may 
be said in passing, has brought about many sudden marriages 
at the moment of departure for the army. Ordinarily there 
are no deductions from his pay for clothing or other supplies. 
The volunteer is provided with everything, and is supplied so 
liberally with rations that he daily throws aw^ay a part of 
them. One may imagine wliat such an army must cost. 
This would not matter if even at such an expense the country 
were well served. It is not so, however. It is ill served for 
want of disciplift 3, not that the military laws and regulations 
were not severe snough ; but they were not enforced, and 



14 THE AKMV OP THE POTOMAC. 

cuiild nut be, in couseqnence ol" the ])rlniaiy organization of 
the regiment, and of the composition of its corps of officers. 
And here we come to the essential vice of an American army. 

How is a regiment of volunteers actually formed ? As soon 
as Congress has voted the number of men, they calculate at 
Washington the (juota which each State must furnish, accord- 
ing to its resources and population. This calculation being 
made, each Governor announces that there are to be so many 
regiments raised within the limits of his jurisdiction. The 
regiment of one battalion only, is tlie American military unit 
Aflairs are managed in this way : 

Persons present themselves ofiering to raise a regiment. 
Each sets forth his claims, his influence in the State, or among 
a certain ]>ortion of the population, which will enable him to 
procure easily the necessary number of men, his devotion to 
the party in power, etc. From among the persons thus pre- 
sented the Governor makes his choice. Generally the ])erson 
upon whom the choice falls has laid it down as a condition 
precedent that he shall have the command of the regiment ; 
and thus Mr. So-and-So, a lawyer or a doctor, never having 
handled a sword, but feeling within himself an improvised 
vocation, becomes a colonel at the start, and puts himself in 
connection with all the recruiting agencies and with all the 
fui-nishers of e(pii]»meiit and clothing supplies for the future 
regiment. The next tiling is to find the soldiers; this is not 
Bo easy, for there is a great deal <>f rivalry. They apply to all 
tlieir comrades, traverse the country, and resort to various 
)>lans. This is done quickly and well in America, for the 
Amt'iiruiis have an inventive mind. ]\Iost frequently they 
iind friends who, seized w itli the same martial ardor, ])i-omise 
to bring so many recruits if they be made — the one captain, 
the other lieutenant, another sergeant, and so forth. The 
iVaiiH-work is formed and is ]>artly tilled uj) ; it only remains 
lo conq>lete it. It i^ then that recourse is had to extraor- 



THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 15 

dinarj measures — to those gigantic posters whi( li set forth in 
pompous terms all the advantages to be gained by joining 
the corps. Tliej go among the Catholic priests to procure 
Irishmen, and give tlie coveted privilege of sutlership to the 
individual who promises the necessary complement of men. 
Thus the regiment finds itself organized, and the lists are 
carried to the Governor, who approves everything. The regi- 
ment is mustered, clothed and equipped, and forwarded by 
railroad to the seat of war. Sometimes, even frequently, the 
grades are made to depend on election ; but that is generally 
only a forinality, as everything has been arranged beforehand 
by those interested. 

The inconveniences of this system are obvious. The officers, 
from the colonel down to the lowest in rank, do not know the 
first word of tlie military art, and if they have any real aptitude 
for it and any warlike qualities, these are still to be proved. 
The soldiers have no illusions on this point. "They know 
no more about it than we do, we are well acquainted with 
tliem," they say of those wlio command them. Hence, there 
is no superiority of knowledge on the part of the officer over 
the soldier, and no superiority of social position in a country 
where no such superiority is recognized. Most frequently, 
also, it is with an idea of being a candidate for political office 
that the oflicer has taken up arms. It is to make himself a 
name in the eyes of the voters. And these future voters are 
the soldiers. What would become of the popularity he ex- 
pects to enjoy if he were rough to the i oldiers, or showed 
himself too exacting in the service ? All these causes bring 
about the want of authority with officers, and the want of res- 
pect among soldiers. Of course, then, there can be neither 
hierarchy nor discipline. All this has been ameliorated by 
force of necessity, and in the school of experience. Even trom 
the beginning there were exceptions to it ; some colonels, im- 
pelled by a I'eal vocation, or animated by an ardent patriotism, 



16 THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 

Bucccetletl in overcoming the obstacles j)lace(,l in llieir path. 
Sonietinies an otticer of the regnhir army, desirous of distiu- 
guishing himself, and having influence enough in his State, 
raised a regiment and obtained tVoni it an admirable result. 
Thus, a young lieutenant of engineers, named Warren, was 
marvellously successful with the Fifth Kew York regiment, 
of which he was colonel. This regiment served as engineers 
and artillery at the siege of Yorktown, and, having again be- 
come infantry, conducted itself like the most veteran troops 
at the battles of the Chickahomiiiy, where it lost half of its 
force. And yet these were volunteers — but they felt the know- 
ledge and superiority of their chief. Generally, however, the 
chief is simply a comrade who wears a difierent costume. He 
is ol)eyed in every day routine, but ^'oluntarily. In the same 
way the soldiers don't trouble themselves about him when cir 
cumstanccs become serious. From the point of view of 
American equality, there is no good reason to obey him. Be- 
eides, in the eyes of the greater number this title of volunteer 
does not signify the soldier who devotes himself generously 
and voluntarily to save the country or to acquire glory, but 
rather the well-paid soldier, who only does what he wishes 
and pleases. This is so true that, although the pay and time 
of service are the same for volunteers and regulars, the re- 
cruiting of regulai'S has become almost inq)ossible. All that 
class of men who enlisted when regulars alone existed, from 
a taste for canq) life, now join the volunteers. On one side 
is license, on the other discipline — the choice is easily made. 
The habits created by universal suffrage also play their part 
and are i-ejjroduced on the Held of battle. By a tacit agree- 
ment the regiment marches against the enemy, advances under 
iirc and begins to deliver its volleys ; the men are brave, very 
brave; they are kiliiMl iiinl wounded in great numbers, and 
then, wiu'ii by a tacit agreement th(y thin!': they have done 
enoULdi for miliiurv lioiKir, thev all nuirch olf toirether. The 



THE ABMY OF THE POTOMAC. l7 

colonel perhaps attempts to give a direction, an impulse, 
but generally liis efforts are in vain. As to the officers, they 
never think of it. Why sliould they attempt it, and why 
should they he obeyed if the majority of the regiment has 
made up its mind to retreat ? Obedience in such an army is 
like the obedience which children playing atsoldiers render to 
him among their comrades whom they have made their cap- 
tain. Is any argument necessary to show the inconvenience 
of such a state of things ? Nevertheless, the Government put 
its hand on an immense mass of armed men, a multitude 
of regiments ; for the country had responded unanimously 
and vigorously to the call for volunteers. Never, we believe, 
has any nation created, of herself, by her own w^ill, by 
her single resources, without coercion of any kind, without 
government pressure, and in such a short space of time, so 
considerable an armament. Free governments, whatever may 
be their faults and the excesses to which they may give rise, 
always preserve an elasticity and creative power which noth- 
ing can equal. Only, the vices of organization which we have 
pointed out singularly impaired the value of this military 
gathering. 

It was to remedy these vices as far as possible that General 
McClellan and old officers of West Point, who had become, 
by force of circumstances, generals of brigade or of division, 
devoted all their efforts. Regiments were brigaded by fours, 
and brigades divisioned by threes. To each division four 
batteries were given, three of them served by volunteers and 
one b}^ regulars. The latter was to serve as a model for the 
others, and its captain took command of all the artillery of 
the division. At one time they had some idea of placing a 
battalion of regulars in each division of volunteers, to act 
the part of " lance head," which Lord Clyde attributes to 
the European troops in the Sepoy armies ; but the idea was 

abandoned. It appeared wisor to keep together the only 
2 



IS THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 

icallv disciplined troops that they possessed; besides, us it was 
made, the divisiitnal fonnation was a good one, and l.as been 
of very gi'eat utility. It next became necessary to ])rovidc 
fur the administrative services for provisions, munitions and 
transports, and to organize artillery reserves, the engineer 
corps, the pontoon corps, the topographical brigade, the tele- 
graphs and the hospitals. 

This prodigious labor was accomplished with a rapidity and 
a success which are extraordinary, when we think that the 
wliulc thing hud to be achieved without any assistance from 
the past. Xot only M-as there nobody to be found who knew 
anything, except from books, of the management of the 
numerous threads by which an army is held together and 
moved ; not only was the country destitute of all precedents 
in the matter ; the number even of those who had travelled 
in Europe and seen for themselves what a grand collection of 
troops is, was infinitely small. Tlie American army had no 
traditions but those of the Mexican campaign of General 
Scott — a bi-illiaiit cam])aign, in which there were many diffi 
cnlties to be overcome, but which presented nothing like the 
gigantic pro|)ortions of the present war. Moreover, in Mexico 
General Scott had with him the entire regular army, and here 
there only remained its feeble ruins. In Mexico the regulars 
were the main body, the volunteers were only the accessory, 
and. as it were, the ornament. The old general, who was one 
day asked what he then did to maintain discipline in their 
ranks, answered, " Oh, they knew that if they straggled off 
thtv would ])(' massacred by the guerrillas." The two cases, 
thti-i-forc. had nothing in common, and the management of 
these great armies of volunteers, in spite of all the efforts to 
regularize them, was a ]u-ob]('m which oflcred many unknown 
data. 

A! tlic South the organization of the insurrectionary forcep 
prcfc'cnti'il fewer (litlirulties. The revolutionary government 



THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 19 

had q\.icMy assumed in the hands of Mr. Jefferson Davis the 
dictatorial form. Sustained by an Oligarchy of three hundred 
thousand slaveholders, of whom he was the choice, and whose 
violent j)assions he personified, Mr. Davis had set himself 
actively at work to ci sate an army fit to contend against the 
formidable preparations of the federal government. A former 
pupil of West Point, a former General of volunteers in Mexico, 
a former Secretary of War in the Union, he had all the re- 
quisite conditions to perform his task well. He applied to it 
his rare capacity. He was seconded by the flower of the for- 
mer federal stafiT, by the more military spirit of the Southern- 
ers, and also by the assistance of all the adventurers, filibusters 
and others, whom the South had always nurtured in view of 
those continual invasions to which slavery condemns her. I 
have no idea of drawing here a sketch of the separatist army; 
but I wish to point out two important differences which mark 
its organization as compared with that of the North. The 
ofloLcers were chosen and nominated directly by the President, 
and were sent with the regiments to fill their positions. There 
was no comradeship between them and the soldiers. The sol- 
diers did not know them, and therefore regarded them as their 
superiors. Tliey were not men who were subsequently, in 
private life, to find themselves again their equals. In short 
these ofiicers belonged to that class of slave owners who living 
by the labor of their inferiors and accustomed to command 
them, attached to the soil by the hereditary transmission of 
the paternal estate and of the black serfs who people it, pos- 
sess to a certain extent, the qn alities of aristocrats. In tlieii 
hands the discipline of the army could not suffer. Numerous 
shootings caused discipline to be respected, and on the day 
of battle they led their soldiers valiantly, and were valiantly 
followed. In the second place, Mr. Davis quickly perceived 
that the volunteer system would be powerless to furnish him 
with enough men to sustain the fratricidal strife into which 



20 THE AKMY OF THE POTOMAC. 

lie liad plunged his country. He came rapidly to conscrij /tioii, 
tu forced recruiting. It was no longer a contract betweei the 
boldicr and his colonel, or between the soldier and the State, 
Avhich w^iulil still leave a possibility of its being annulled, and 
which brought with it Jibsolute obligations. It was the law, 
the authority, the power of the State, which carried oft' aU 
able-bodied men and made them march up blindly to what was 
called the defence of their country. There was uo hesitation 
possible. Bound by the obligation of duty, the soldier became 
at once more submissive and more reconciled to the sacrifice. 
In the situation in which the South was, these measures were 
wise, and there is no doubt that they contributed at the begin- 
ning of the war to secure great advantages to its army. Xever- 
theless, we are far from reproaching Mr. Lincoln for not hav- 
injr recourse to such violent measures. The leaders of an insur- 
rection recognize no obstacle, and are stopped by no scruples 
when the object is to assure the triumph of their ambitious 
views, and particularly to escape the consequences of defeat. 
They recoil before nothing, and have no repugnance to revo- 
lutionar}' expedients ; but Mr. Lincoln and his advisers were 
the legitimate rej^resentatives of the nation, and if it fell to 
them to suppress a revolt, they did not wisli, unless in case of 
absolute necessity, to touch the guarantees which, up to that 
time, had made the American people the happiest and freest 
l>eople of the earth. 

XL 

plans of the (iTumpingiT. 

TiiK army ojice impi-ovised, it next became necessary tc 
decide liow to employ it — in other M'ords, to choose the plan 
of the campaign. TIic general plan was simple. The idea of 
concpiering and occujiying a territory so vast as that of the 



V-7" 



THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 21 

Confederate States could not even be considered ; but for the 
purpose of escaping the dangers, actual and possible, of such a 
formidab.'.e insurrection, it was necessary to attain three re- 
sults : to blockade efficiently the insurgent coast ; to get con- 
trol of the Mississippi river, and of the entire system of West- 
ern waters ; and, finally, to drive the rebel government out 
Richmond, its capital. By the blockade the rebels are isolated 
from the foreigners whose sympathy had been promised them ; 
the introduction of powder and firearms is prevented ; expor- 
tation, and the resources which it might have procured, are 
stopped ; and, finally, the introduction of supplies from abroad 
is guarded against, Vvhicli would, in spite of the state of war, 
have penetrated into the North, to the great detriment of 
national manufactures and of the Federal treasury. To the 
navy belonged the duty of this blockade. It discharged that 
duty rather inefficiently at first for want of sufficient means ; 
but by degrees the surveillance grow closer and closer until it 
became difficult to evade it. 

The possession of the Mississippi was an imperious neces- 
sitv. The p-reat river and its affluents are the outlets of all the 
countries which they water. They are the arteries of the 
Western States — States which have, up to this time, remained 
faithful to the Union, but in which their material interests 
might at length chill their enthusiasm, and speak even louder 
than their convictions. To restore the Union as a matter of 
interest, on the basis of slaver}^, has been for a long time past 
the programme of the Southern leaders. To abandon to them 
without a struggle the Western rivers would be to concede 
half the question. It was therefore decided to bring on a con- 
flict on this theatre. The navy recaptured 'New Orleans by a 
brilliant coitp de main. That was the principal point. The 
Federals thus put tlie key in their pocket. As to the course 
of the Mississippi, the task of reconquering it was confided to 
the Western armieSj admirably seeondet by Commodore 



22 THE ARMY OF THE rOTOMAC. 

Foutc's llotilla of iron-cliul balteries and steam rams. In 
those regions the wav assumed quite a new character. So 
long as they were carried on only by water the operations 
were very rapid. The enemy could not intercept the niag- 
iiiiicent navigable highways so favorable to attack wliich the 
great rivers of the "West supplied. By water Columbus was 
besieged, whilst by (piickly ascending the Tennessee and Cum- 
berland rivers, the communications of the rebel army assigned 
to the defence of that important post, were cut. Once isolated 
from its railroads, that army had to retreat southwards. It 
thus retired from position to position, as fast as the Northern 
flotilla descended the river, and as tlie Northern army seized 
upon the princij>al railroad branches. The march of the 
Federals only slackened when, being able to advance no far- 
ther by luivigable waters, parallel to the Mississippi, such as 
the Tennessee, they had to reconstruct, as they went along, 
the railroads necessary for their supplies, which the enemy 
had destroyed in falling back. 

The last o})cration remained — to drive out of Richmond the 
insurrectionary government. That government, on being 
concentrated in the hands of Mr. Davis, took the form of a 
dictatorship, and thus gave to its seat the importance of a 
capital. There converge all the great railroad and telegraph 
lines. Thence, for a year ])ast, have all orders and despatches 
been dated. To force the Confederate government to abandon 
that capital would be to inflict upon it an immense check — in 
the eyes of Europe particularly it would have taken away its 
jircstige. Shoidd this attack have been ventured on as soon 
iis the means supposed to be sufficient were provided, without 
awaiting the results of the blockade and of the Mississippi 
campaign!! On this (jueslion opinions were divided. Soma 
taid ''yes,'' arguing thus: that an insurrectiou should never 
hi- ;,Mven the time to establisli itself; that the Federal army, 
witii its defective organization, would bo no better in ^larch 



THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 23 

than ill November ; that a splendid success on the part of the 
North, following close upon Bull Run, migli: finish the war at 
one blow, by permitting a great effort at conciliation be- 
fore either side became too much embittered. Others said 
'' no." According to them the great work of reducing the 
-nsurrectioa should be performed on the coast and on the 
Mississippi. The Richmond campaign, undertaken in the 
spring, with the Army of the Potomac, made hardier by a 
winter passed in tents, and recovered from the fatal impressions 
of Bull Run, would be the coup de grace, to Secession. The 
latter course was chosen, either as the result of real delibera- 
tion, or ^f necessity from not having decided in time to act 
during the fine weather of the autumn of 1861. 

And here I may point out, in passing, a characteristic trait 
of the American people — that is, as well in regard to the peo- 
ple as to an agglomeration of individuals — delay. This delay 
in resolving and acting, so opposed to the promptitude, the 
decision, the audacity to which the American, considered as 
an individual, had accustomed us, is an inexplicable phen- 
omenon which always causes me the greatest astonishment. 
Is it the abuse of the individual initiative that kills the 
collective energy ? Is it the habit of calculating only on one's 
self and of acting only for one's self that renders them hesi- 
tating and distrustful when they must act with tlie assist- 
ance of others ? Is it the never having learned to obey that 
makes it so difficult to command? Doubtless something: of 
all these causes, and other causes still that escape us, must com- 
bine in producing this result, as strange as it is unaccountable ; 
but this delay in action which, besides, appears to belong to the 
Anglo-Saxon race, is atoned for by a tenacity and a persever- 
ance which failure does not discourage. 

Let us, then, leave the federal fleets occupied in blockading 
the rebel coast, in recapturing N^ew Orleans, in aiding General 
Halleck to reconquer the course of the Mississippi, and let us 



HI Till-: AK.MV OF THE POTOMAC. 

I'ullow iliL' career of the Army of tlio I'otoiiiac, destined to en 
gage the i^reat. confederate army and to wrest from it, if pos- 
sible, the |)()S-x>6sion of the \'ira;inian ca})itaL Tlie winter had 
passed, for the Northern soldiers, in the work of organization, 
of drilling, of ]irovisioning; besides, tlicy had constructed 
around Washington a series of works, of detached forts (to use 
a Well known e.\i»res>i(i.i) which, armed with powerful artillery, 
would }a-otect the capital from a sudden assault, even though 
the Army of the Totomac might; be absent. The construction 
of these works furnished scope for thought to those who sought 
to penetrate the ])rojects of the General ; but everything had 
long been so quiet at Washington that it was only casually 
that the idea of entering on a campaign presented itself. 
The enemy still occupied, in great force, liis positions of Ma- 
nassas and Centreville, and for six months past nothing but un- 
important skirmishes had occurred between the two armies. 
Things were in this condition when, on the evening of the 9th 
of March, one of my friends, tapping me on the shoulder, 
said : '' You don't know the news? The enerny has evacuated 
Manassas, and the army sets out to-morrow." Next day, in 
reality, the whole city of Washington vras in commotion, A 
mass of artillei-y, of cavalry, of wagons, blocked up the 
streets, moving towards the bridges of the Potomac. On the 
sidewalks were seen officers bidding tender farewells to weep- 
ing ladies. The civilian portion of the ])0])ulation looked 
coldly on this dejiarture. There was not the least ti-ace of en- 
thusiasm among them. Perhaps this was due to the rain, 
which was falling in torrents. 

On the long bridge, in the midst of several batteries that 
^^■er(• labi.riou-ly deliling across this bi-idge which is elernally in 
ruins. 1 met Ocncral ^IcClcUan. on horsel)ack. with an anxious 
air. i-iding aliiiic, without aids-dc-canip, and escorted only by 
a few tro(»]iei's. .'](• who coidd that day have read the Gen- 
cral'ti soul woidd havt; seen there already something of tha< 



THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 25 

bitterness which subsequently was to accumulate so cruelly 
upon hira. 

Beyond the bridge we found the whole army in motion 
towards Fairfax Court House, where a great part of it en- 
camped that evening. The cavalry pushed on as far as Cen- 
treville and Manassas, which it found abandoned. The enemy 
was not come up with anywhere ; he had had too greatly the 
start of us. The head-quarters were established , as well as 
possible at Fairfax, a pretty village, with large frame houses 
standing apart and surrounded by gardens. The population 
had fled at our approach, almost without an exception. The 
next da}'- I accompanied a cavalry reconnoissance to Centre- 
ville, where I saw the immense barracks which the Confede- 
rates had occupied during the winter, and to Manassas, whose 
smoking ruins left on the mind a deep impression of sadness. 
On our return we visited the battle field of Bull Run. Gene- 
ral McDowell was with us. He could not restrain his tears at 
the sio-ht of those bleachino; bones, which recalled to him so 
vividly the cruel recollection of his defeat. 

While we Nvere making these promenades grave events were 
occurring in the highest regions of the army. There exists in 
the American army, as in the English, a commander-in-chief 
who exercises over the head of all the generals, a supreme 
authority, regulates the distribution of the troops and directs 
military operations. These functions, which have been greatly 
curtailed in tlie British army, since the Crimean war, were 
still exercised with all their vigor in America. From the aged 
General Scott, who had long honorably discharged them, they 
had passed to General McClellan. We learned on reaching 
Fairfax, that they had been taken away from him. It is easy 
to understand the diminution of force and the restrictions upon 
his usefulness, thus inflicted upon the general-in-chief by ablow 
in the rear at the very outset of his campaign. 

Yet this was but a part of the mischief done him. McClellan 



26 THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 

had loiij^ kiiiiwn, better tlixii anybody else, tlio real strength 
of the rebels at Manassas and Ceutreville. lie was perfectly 
familiar with the existence of the "wooden cannon" by which 
it has been pretended that he was kept in awe for six months. 
But he also knew that till the mouth of April the rnads of 
Virginia are in such a state that wagons and artillery can only 
be moved over them by constructing plaidv roads, a tedious 
operation, during which the enemy, holding the I'ailways, 
could either retreat, as lie was then actually doing, or move 
for a blow upon some other j)oint. In any event, had Mc- 
Clellan attacked and carried Ceutreville, pursuit was impos- 
sible and victory would have been barren of results. A single 
bridge burned would have saved Johnston's whole army. 
Such are the vast advantages of a railway for a retreating 
army — advantages which do not exist for the army which pur- 
sues it. 

We have the right, we think, to say thatMcClellan never in 
tended to advance u])on Ceutreville, His long determined pu 
pose was to make Washington safe by means of a strong garrison, 
and then to use the great navigable waters and immense naval 
resources of the Xorth to transport the army b}' sea to a point 
near Richmond. For weeks, perhaps for months, this plan 
liad been secretly nuitui'ing. Secresy as well as promptness, 
it will be understood, was indispensable here to success. To 
keep the secret it had been necessary to confide it to few per 
sons, and hence had arisen one great cause for jealousy of the 
General. 

J>e this as it may, as the day of action drew near, those 
who BUhpt-cteil the Generars i)roject, and were angry at iiot 
iK'ing infurnii'd of it; those whom his promotion had excited 
to envy ; his political enemies ; (who is M'ithout them in Amer- 
ica?) in short all those beneath or beside liim wlio wished him 
ill, bn.ki- (Mil into ;i cliMi-us of accusations of slowness, inactioir 
incui)acily. .McClcllan, witii a {)atriotic courage which 1 hav( 



-^7 

THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 27 

always admired, disdained these accusations, and made no re- 
ply. He satisfied himself with pursuing his preparations in 
laborious silence. But the moment came in which, notwith- 
standing the loyal support given him by the President, that 
functionary could no longer resist the tempest. A council 
of war of all the divisional generals was held ; a plan of 
campaign, not that of McClellan, was proposed and discussed. 
McClellan was then forced to explain his projects, and the 
next day they were knoM-n to the enemy. Informed no doubt 
by one of those thousand female spies who keep up his com- 
munications into the domestic circles of the federal enemy, 
Johnston evacuated Manassas at once. This was a skillful 
nianceuvre. Incapable of assuming the offensive; threatened 
with attack either at Centreville, where defence would be 
useless if successful, or at Richmond, the loss of which would 
be a grave check, and unable to cover both positions at once, 
Johnston threw his whole force before the latter of the 
two. 

For the Army of the Potomac this was a misfortune. Its 
movement was unmasked before it had been made. Part of 
its transports were still frozen up in the Hudson. Such being 
the state of aifairs, w^as it proper to execute as rapidly as pos- 
sible the movement upon Pichmond by water, or to nuircli 
upon Pichmond by land ? Such was the grave question to be 
settled by the young general in a miserable room of an aban- 
doned house at Fairfax within twenty-four hours. And it was 
at this moment that the news of his removal as general-in- 
chief reached him ; the news, that is, that he could no longer 
count upon the co-operation of the other armies of the Union, 
and that the troops under his own orders were to be divided 
into four grand corps under four separate chiefs named in 
order of rank^ a change which would throw into subaltern 
positions some young generals of division who had his personal 
confidence. It is easy to see that here was matter enough to 



28 THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 

cast a cloiui upon the firmest mind. But the General's reso 
lution was in-omptlj^ taken. 

To follow the confederates by Land to Richmond at this sea- 
son of the year was a material impossibility. An incident 
had just proved this to be so. Gen. Stoncnuui, with a flying 
column, had been sent in pursuit of the enemy. This column 
came up with the enemy (Ui the Ilappahanuock, along the 
railway to Gordonsville, and had two engagements Avith him 
of no great importance. Then came the rain. The fords were 
swollen, the bridges carried away, the water-courses could no 
longer be passed by swimming; they were torrents. Stone- 
man's column began to suffer for want of provisions, and its 
situation was perilous. In order to communicate with the 
army Stoneman had to send two of McClellan's aides-de-camp, 
who had accompanied him, across a river on a raft of logs 
tied together with ropes. 

Such was the country before the army. Furthermore, the 
enemy was burning and breaking up all the bridges. Now 
with the wants of the American soldier and the usual extrav- 
agance of his rations, and with the necessity of transporting 
everything through a country where nothing is to be found, 
and where the least storm makes the roads impassable, no 
army can live unless it supports its march upon a navigable 
water-course t)r a railway. In Kuropo our military admiv.is- 
tration assumes that the transportation service of an army of 
one hundred thousand men can only provision that army for 
a three days' march from its base of operations. In America 
this limit must be reduced to a single day. An American 
army, therein ire, cannot remove itself nujre than one day's 
march from tin- i-ail\vay or the water-course by which it is 
KUl)plied; and if the road which it is taking happens to bo 
inti'rrupted by broken bridi^os it must wait till thoy are ro- 
])airi'<l, or move forward without food and without aiuniuni 
tion. 1 nee<l oidy add iliut ujioi U".e roads which led to llicli 



THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 29 

mond there were viaducts which it would have required six 
wrecks to reconstruct. 

The hand march was therefore abandoned and we came back 
to the movement bj water. But this operation also was no 
longer what it had been when McCIellan had conceived it. 
The revelation of his plans to the enemy had allowed the lat- 
ter to take his precautions. The evacuation of Manassas had 
preceded instead of following the opening of the federal cam- 
paign. The movement by water conld no longer be a sur- 
prise. Unfortunately it was now also to lose the advantages 
of a rapid execution. 

A few days had been half lost in a useless pursuit of the 
enemy while the transports were assembling at Alexandria. 
At last they were assembled and the order came to embark. 
But here a new misunderstanding awaited the General. He 
had been promised transports which could convey 50,000 men 
at a time. He found vessels hardly equal to the conveyance 
of half that number. Instead of moving at once, as McCIellan 
had intended, a whole army with its equipage, a number of 
trips had to be made. The embarkation began March 17. 
The force consisted of eleven divisions of infantry, 8,000 to 
10,000 strong ; one division of regulars (inf. and cav.) 6,000 
strong ; 350 pieces of artillery. The total eifective force may 
have been 120,000 men. At the moment of departure a whole 
division was detached to form, we know not why, an inde- 
pendent command under General Fremont in the mountains 
of Virginia. We shall see the Potomac army successively 
undergo other not less inexplicable diminutions. But we 
anticipate. 

A fortnight was required to move the army to Fortress 
Monroe. This point was chosen because the apparition of the 
Merrimac, and her tremendous exhibition of her strength, had 
made it impossible to regard the federal navy as absolutely 
mistress of the waters of Yirginia. 



30 TUK ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 

Fortrc;«s Monroe is a regular citadel, built of stone, which 
occnpios tjie southern point ot'the Virginian j^eninsula, and has 
remained in the hands of the Federal Government since the 
outhi'eak nf tlie war. This fortress, crossing its lire with that 
of the Rip Rajis, a fort built on an artificial island, commands 
the ])assage from the Atlantic to Hampton Roads, and thence 
liy the James river to Richmond, or by the Elizabeth to ]^or- 
folk, where the Merrimac was then lying. It was in these 
interior waters that the naval battles had occurred which have 
filled such a place in public attention, and which exercised 
upon the future of the Army of the Potomac so serious an in- 
fluence, that it will not perhaps be improper to give them a 
l^lace in this narrative. 

I shall not descri1)e the Merrimac, which everybody now 
knows. I will simply remind the reader that she was an old 
and very large screw steam frigate, razeed to the water line, 
and covered with an iron roof, inclined just far enough to throw 
off any ball which might strike her. In this roof portholes 
were made for 100-pounder Armstrong guns, and for other 
pieces of very heavy calibre. The bows were armed with an 
iron spur, resembling that of the ancient galleys. On the 8th 
of March, the Merrimac, escorted by several iron-clad gun- 
boats, leaves the Elizabeth river and steers straight for the 
mouth of the James, where lay anchored the two old-fashioned 
sailing frigates, the Cumbei'laiid and Congress. Both open 
with full broadsides upon the unexpected eneni}', but without 
effect ; the balls ricochet from the iron roof. The Merrimac 
keeps quietly on, and at a speed of no more than from four to 
live knots strikes her spur into the side of the Cumberland. 
It is a singular lact that the shock was so slight as to be 
Bcarcely jierceptible on board the Merrimac; but it had smit- 
ten the federal frigate to death. She was seen to careen and 
go down majestically, carrying M'ith her two hundred men of 
her Clew, m \' >, t(j the last moment, worked their useless guns; 



THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 31 

a grand and glorions spectacle ! But in this fatal shock the 
Merriraac had broken her spur. Was this her reason for not 
even attempting to sink the Congress ? It is at least certain 
that she confined herself to an artillery duel with the latter 
frigate. Encumbered with the dead and the dying the Con- 
gress set her sails, ran ashore, hanled down her flag, and burst 
into flames. In attempting to capture part of her crew, the 
sailors of the Merrimac were exposed to a musketry Are from 
the shore, and a ball struck her brave and skillful commander, 
Captain Buchanan, 

Meanwhile, the federal squadron united in Hampton Roads, 
got under weigh to come to the help of their unfortunate com- 
panions in the James riv^er : but this squadron could aflford 
them but little help. It was composed of three frigates, of 
which one alone, the Minnesota, was in a condition to be of 
any service ; this vessel was a screw frigate of the size of the 
Merrimac, but she was not iron-clad. The two others, the 
Roanoke, a screw frigate which had lost her mainmast and 
the St. Lawrence, an old sailing frigate, were only good to be 
destroyed. Both of these vessels, after fruitless eflorts to reach 
the scene of action, and after partially running aground, gave 
np the attempt and returned to their anchorage. As to the 
Minnesota, which might have had some chance against the 
Merrimac, not with her guns, but by using her superior speed 
to run her aboard and sink her by the shock, she drew six 
feet of water more than the Merrimac, and obeyed her helm 
very badly when she had no more than one foot of water un- 
der her keel, and so she, too, ran aground in a very dangerous 
situation. There is no doubt that if the Merrimac had attacked 
her here she would have shared the fate of the Cumberland 
and the Congress. The Merrimac, probably to aveuge her 
captain, remained off the camp of Newport News, slielling 
that and the batteries, and then returned to Norfolk, where 
she went in for the night, probably intendliig to come out the 



32 THE ARJIY OF THE POTOMAC. 

next (.lay ami iiiiisli lier work of destruction. But during the 
night the Monitor urrivcd. 

I nnist ask to be pardoned for the familiar comparison which 
1 am about to use to irive tlic reader an idea of this sino^ular 
vessel. 

Everyl)ody knows the cylindrical Savoy biscuits covered with 
chocolate paste, which are a ]»rinci[)al oi'nainent of every pastry 
cook's shop. Let the reader imagine one of these biscuits 
placed in an oblong plate, and he will have an exact idea of 
the external appearance of the Monitor. The Savoy biscuit 
stands for an iron tower ])ierccd Avith two openings through 
which ])eer the muzzles of two enoi'mous cannons. This tower 
is made to turn upon its axis by a ver}- ingenious contrivance, 
in such a fashion as to direct its fire on any point of the hori- 
zon. As to the oblong plate on which the liiscuit reposes, this 
is a kiiul of lid of iron set on at the water level upon the hull 
which contains the engine, the storage for provisions, and for 
the crew, and the displacement of the hull supports the whole 
structure. From a distance the tower only is visible, and this 
lloating tower, so novel in apjiearauce, was the first thing 
which greeted the Merrimac and her com.rades when, on the 
morning of the 9th of March, they came back to give the 
final blow to the ^Nfiimesota, which was still ashore, and pro- 
bably to work furtlici- ruin. 

The two hostile ships, Jamestown and Yorktown, advanced 
first, with that sort of timid curiosity which a dog displays 
when he comes near an unknown animal. They had not long 
1o wait, two flashes sprang iVom the tower, and were followed 
by the hissing of two 120-p(iund balls. No more was 7ieeded 
to Bend the two scouts flying back. The Merrimac, also, at 
once ])erceived that there was work ahead, and ran boldly 
down to meet tliis unexjH'cted adversary. Tiien began the 
due] which has been So much discussed, and which seems des- 
tined to bi-iii|^ on so great a revolution in the naval art. From 



vO 



THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 33 

the first, the two tilters felt that they must fight ,at close quar- 
ters ; but, even at a tew yards distance, they seemed to be 
equally invulnerable. The balls ricochetted and struck with- 
out appearing to leave any trace but the very slightest bruises. 
Round shot of 120 pounds, conical 100-pounders, Armstrong 
balls, nothing went through. Then the Merriniac, trying to 
take advantage of her huge mass, undertook to sink her enemy 
by taking her violently in flank. But she could not get 
sufficient way. The Monitor, short, agile, easily handled, ran 
up to her, ran around her, escaped her blows with a speed 
which the Merrimac, from her excessive length, could not at- 
tain. Nothing could be more curious than to see the two ad- 
versaries turning one about the other, the little Monitor 
describing the inner circle, both equally watchful for the 
weak point of tlie enemy against which to discharge at point 
blank one of their enormous projectiles. "It was for all the 
world," said an eye-witness, " like the fight of Heenan with 
Sayers." So the conflict went on with no visible results for 
several hours. Once, onl}^, the Merrimac succeeded in strik- 
ing the side of the Alonitor with her bows ; but the Monitor 
whirled around under the shock like a floating shell, and a 
very slight indenture left upon her plating was the only 
damage caused by this tremendous concussion. The exhaus- 
tion of the combatants put an end to this struggle. The con- 
federates returned to Norfolk, leaving the Monitor in posses- 
sion of the field of battle. The Minnesota and the whole 
flotilla in Hampton Koads were saved, the pigmy had held his 
own against the giant. It remained to be seen if the latter 
would make another effort when the stakes should be more 
tempting, when, instead of seeking to destroy one or two 
shij)s of war, there should be a chance of preventing the 
disembarkation of a whole army of invasion. 

These were the circumstances in which I arrived at Fortress 
Monroe. Soon the Roads were filled with vessels coming 



84 THE ARMY OP TUE POTOMAC. 

from Aloxamlria or .\tin;ipolis, ami Ulled, some witli soldiers, 
Boiiie with liorsc'.^, caiHnui and munitions of all kinds. Some- 
times 1 counted several liundred vessels at the anchoraf^e, and 
among them twenty or twenty-five large steam trans[)orts 
waiting for their tni'ii to eome up to the quay and land the iif- 
tcen or twenty thousand mm whom thc}^ brought. The reader 
may judge how feai'fid would have been the catastro])hc had 
the Merrimac suddenly appeared among this swarm of ships, 
striking them one after another and sending to the bottom these 
liuman hivefj with all their inmates ! The federal authorities 
both naval and military here underwent several days of the 
keenest anxiety. Every time that a smoke was seen above the 
trees which concealed the Elizabeth river, men's hearts beat 
fast; but the Merrimac never came ; she allowed the landing 
to lake [)lace without oi)])Osition. 

AVhy did she do this ? 

She did not come because her position at jSTorfolk as a con- 
stant menace secured without any risk two results of great 
importance. In the first place she kei)t paralysed in Hampton 
lloads the mival forces assembled to join the land army in the 
attack ui)ou "^'orktown : in the second place, and this was her 
jM-ineipal object, she deprived the federal army of all the 
advantages which the possession of the James would have 
secured to it in a campaign of which liiehnioiul was the 
base. 

No doubt, if the Merrimac had gone down to the Roads and 
destroyed the lleet there assembled, she wtMild have achieved 
an immense result, but all the chances would not have been 
with her in such an (_Mit^M-j)rise. In the first place, the Merri 
mac would have encountered the Monitor. Ship to ship she 
did not fear this enemy: the Monitor's armament had proved 
impotent against her armor and would prove so again ; and if 
f>hi'. h:id not succee<lc'd in sinlsing tlic ^fonitor at the first shock 
the had taken her measures to secure better luck the next time. 



THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 35 

The (ixpedient adopted was a submarine spur of hammered 
steel, ten feet long with which she would have reached the 
hull of the Monitor below her iron cover. Of course the 
latter floating at the water level and without compartments 
must have gone down as soon as she fairly made water. But 
the Monitor would have had new auxiliaries in a new conflict 
When the Morrimac first came out, as she was seen to mako 
nothing of piercing the Cumberland and sinking that unlucky 
ship, it had instantly occurred to the federals that in the ab 
sence of vessels constructed like herself the best means of fight 
ing her would be to employ large vessels of great speed, which 
might be brought together to the number of five or six and 
driven against her as soon as she should make her appearance. 
The engines of these ships once set in motion, only five or six 
men would be required to guide them. The men and the 
ships were ready. Had the Merrimac appeared they would 
have run down upon her at twice her speed. One at least 
must have succeeded in striking her broadside and would have 
infallibly sunk her, for her cuirass ofi'ered no defence against 
such an attack, or must have run her aboard at the stern and 
deranged her screw when the Monitor would have had her at 
her mercy. Other precautions had been taken. A net-work 
of submarine cordage had been set at the mouth of the Eliza- 
beth river, and this would probably not have failed to sweep 
around the Merrimac's screw and paralyse its working. All 
these things, but especially the five or six large vessels with 
steam always up, and always on the watch like a pack of dogs 
straining at the leash, had brought the confederate authorities 
to reflection. For my own part, I am perfectly satisfied that 
if the Merrimac had ventured into the deep water, beyond the 
shoals which obstruct the entrance of the James and Eliza- 
beth, where her adversaries could get way upon them, she 
would have sone down in a few moments. The federal officers 
appreciating the importance of the object aimed at were deter 



36 Till-: ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 

mined to sacrifice their ships and with their ships their own 
lives to iitUiiu it. 

In a word, the American navy might prevent the Merrimac 
iVoiu coming into deep water and interfering with the mili- 
tary operations, of which the York river was the destined 
theatre. But the Merrimac, on the other hand, stood in the 
way of siuiihir ()})erations on the James. This was an im- 
mense service to be rendered by a single ship ! We have 
seen above how impossible it became to move forward the 
army of the Potomac directly and by land upon Richmond, 
when the railway linos, by which it was to be supplied and 
its different parts united, were interrupted. Here we see the 
direct road to Richmond by water blocked by a vessel, a 
wreck happily rescued from the destruction of the Korfolk 
navy yard, fished up half burned from the bottom of a dock, 
and transformed by hands ixs intelligent as they were daring, 
into a formidable warlike machine. Instead of moving up the 
bank of the James river to Richmond rapidly under the escort 
and with the support of a powerful flotilla, here was the 
whole federal army compelled to disembark under great perils 
at Fortress Monroe in order to take the practicable but long 
and round-about road of the York river. We were to be 
■>rced into going first to Yorktown, an obstacle to be removed 
by arms, and thi;n into ascending the York and the Pamun- 
koy to the head waters at White House. Prom this point 
where we must leave our gunboats, we were then to follow 
the line of the York river railway, a road on which there 
were hapj^ly no bridges, and which it was not therefore easy 
to cut, hut which traverses an unwholesome region, and ofi'ers 
the formidalih; hairier of the Chickahominy river at a few 
miles from Riciunond. 

.V sure and rapid operation was thus converted into a long 
and liazardous campaign, simply because we had lost on one 
]n»iiit, and for a bli'.wt time, the control of the water. Every 



THE ARMY OP THE POTOMAC. 37 

bodj had doubted the efficiency of iron-clads, and nobody 
had thought much of the Merrimac before we learned what 
she was. This skepticism was cruelly punished. In the West 
the armies of the Union were going on from success to suc- 
cess, thanks to the cooperation, energy, and enterprise of the 
navy, admirably seconded by the geographical formation of 
the country. Here things were very different. A single suc- 
cess of the confederates by sea, a single blow which they had 
succeeded in striking by surprise, was destined perhaps to 
paralyze the whole federal army, to make it lose great geo- 
graphical advantages equal to those which existed in the 
West, and to compromise, or at least to postpone the success 
of its operations ; so true is it that experience has not yet 
taught even the most experienced maritime nations all that is 
to be gained by the cooperation of a well-organized navy in 
wars by land \ 

III. 

Jfrom Jfortnss Sonrac ia MiUtamsIjitr^. 

Whilst we were thus waiting and waiting in vain for the 
Merrimac, the army was landing at Fortress Monroe, now the 
scene of a prodigious activity. By the 4th of April, six divi 
sions, the cavalry, the reserve, and an immense number of 
wagons had been landed. The General-in-Chief who had 
arrived the evening before, put them at once in motion. 
Keyes, with three divisions took the road which leads along 
the banks of the James river. McClellan with the rest of the 
army followed the direct road to Yorktown. We came at 
once upon the ruins of Hampton, burned down some months 
before, a la Bostopchin^ by the confederate General Magrn- 
der. We were informed that he still commanded the garrison 
of Yorktown and 'he Peninsula. Magruder, like all the 



38 THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 

cuntcdcrate leaders, had l^eluiiged to the regular ariiy of the 
Union down to the moment of the insurrection. His former 
comrades, now at the head of the federal troops, were familiar 
with his habits and character, and sought to infer from them 
the course he would pursue. This reciprocal knowledge 
which the chiefs of the two armies possessed of each other, 
the result of a career begun in common in early youth at the 
military school, and pursued either on the battle-field or in 
the tedious life of frontier garrisons, was certainly a singular 
trait of this singular war. Some people built up their hopes 
of a final reconciliation upon these old intimacies, but such 
hopes were not to be realized. 

Another not less curious trait of the war,whic]i appeared in 
the outset of the campaign and was constantly reproduced, 
was the complete absence of all information in regard to the 
country and to the position of the enemy, the total ignorance 
under which we labored in regard to his movements, and the 
number of his troops. Tiie few inhabitants we met were 
hostile and dund) ; the deserters and negroes generally told 
us much more than they knew in order to secure a welcome, 
anil as we had no ]iia{>s and no knowledge of localities, it was 
impossible to make anything of their stories, and to reconcile 
their often contradictory statements. 

We were here twenty-four miles from Yorktown, and we 
coidd not Icai-ii wliat works tlie enemy had thrown up, nor 
what wtis his force within them. This was the more amazing 
that Fortress Moiu'oe had always bee:* held by a strong gar- 
rison, which ought to have been able to obtain some inform- 
iitioii or to make some reconnoissance in this direction. But 
by a strange aberration, this fortress now become the base of 
operations of tlu; Aimhv of the Potomac, had been specially 
be<picstercd from the eoiamaud of General McClellan, together 
witli its garrison, :dthough the General in charge of it was 
his inlciior in rank, llcnce arose military susceptibilities 



THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 39 

whicli were by no moans favorable to the exchmge of con- 
fidential communications. 

So the Army of the Potomac moved on in the dark 
toward Yorktown. We were two days on the road. The 
column of the General-in-Chief had passed some fortified 
positions abandoned by the enemy. A few horsemen were 
occasionally seen at rare intervals. No sooner had we come 
under the walls of Yorktown than we were arrested by the 
cannon. A few gunboats, which had appeared at the mouth 
of York river, had found it guarded by some forty pieces of 
heavy calibre. The naval officers concluded that they could 
not pass this battery ; the investment of the place by water 
must consequently be abandoned. When we undertook to 
invest it by land, we came upon a series of works stretching 
across the peninsula, on the edge of a marshy stream, called 
Warwick Creek, and high enough to make investment im- 
possible. The confederates had dammed this marshy stream 
in places so as to convert it into a pond, and their dams, with 
other accessible points, were defended by artillery, redoubts, 
and rifle-pits. Abattis had been formed in front of these re- 
doubts and upon the opposite side of the marsh so as to 
secure a wide range for the guns. 

General Keyes, in trying to pass the river Warwick, 
had been the first to encounter this line of defence. His 
march had been very slow. The country, perfectly flat, and 
covered with marshy forests, was only traversed by a few 
roads scarce worthy of the name. The rain, falling in tor- 
rents, unusual at this season of the year, had made these 
roads, if we must so call them, completely impracticable. 
The infantry could contrive to get on by marching in the 
water through the woods, but as soon as two or three wagons 
had made ruts in the ground, no wheeled vehicle could move 
an inch. Of course all movement was impossible, for we 
could not leave the wagons. The country was utterly de- 



40 TFiK ARMV OF THE POTOMAC, 

sertod. l^xco[)t water and i'nod, it supplied us ^vitli nothing, 
The siddieis, unacciistonied either to long marches or to carry 
their aniiiiimitioii, carried but two days' })rovisions. These 
exhausted, the wagons were tlieir only resource. Then it was 
tliat we had to make what in America are called corduroy 
roads. These are made by cutting down trees of the same 
size, a tew inches in dianu'tcr, and laying them side by side 
on the gi-ound. All the infantry, not on duty at the advanced 
posts, M'ere emi)loyed, working up to their knees in the mud 
and Avater, upon this Herculean laboi", and they got through it 
wonderfully. Here the American pioneer was in his element ; 
the roads were made as if by enchantment. The cannon and 
the wagons came in slowly indeed, but they came in where it 
seemed an impossibility they ever should do so. At night 
the troojis could lind no dry corner for their bivouac. They 
had to sit down on the trunks of felled trees, or to construct 
with logs a sort of ])latform, on which they snatched a very 
precarious rest. I remember to have seen a general of division 
whose M'hole establishment consisted of five or six pine 
branches, one end stuck in the nnid, or rather in the water, 
the other I'esting on a tree. Here lie sle])t with an indiau- 
rubber cloak over his head. Marching along in this fashion, 
we reached the confederate lines, which opened on us at 
once with a sharj^ lire of artillery. We rej^lied, but without 
making any imj)re~sion on the well-deiined works which 
covered the hostile cannon. The cix'ek had been recon- 
noitred and found impassable by infantis-y, both on account of 
the de))th of water and of its marshy borders, in which the 
trooi»s wduld ha\-e bei'ii niiicd under a cross-fire of numbers 
of h-har])sliooters, conceak'd in the woods and behind the em 
bankmentn. 

'1 hroughout the seven miles of the confederate lines we en- 
couutcrcfl the same altitude of alert defence. Everywhere 
cannon and camps. < >f course the inference was that we wt'ro 



THE ARMY OP THE POTOMAC. 41 

arrested bj forces apparently formidable and before a position 
not easily to be canied. But this case had been foreseen. If 
order to gain time, and avoid the tedium of a siege, General 
McClellan had thought out the means of turning the position. 
The enemy held the James, with the Merrimac and his gun 
boats ; the York was closed by the Yorktown and Gloucester 
Point batteries. Xevertheless, by a disembarkation on the 
Severn, beyond Gloucester, we might carry the latter position 
and open the way of the federal gunboats into the river York, 
A subsequent movement up the left bank, in the direction of 
West Point, would put us so far in the rear of the army charg- 
ed with the defence of the lines of Yorktown, that it would 
have been in a most perilous position. This accomplished, 
the confederates must have abandoned Gloucester, and fallen 
back hastily upon Kichmond. The execution of this coitjp de 
main had been left to a corps of the army commanded by 
General McDowell. This corps was to be the last to embark 
at "Washington, and it was calculated that it ought to reach 
Yorktown in a body on its transports at the moment when the 
rest of the army, moving by land, should appear before that 
post from Fortress Monroe. 

Instead of finding it, we received the inexplicable and as 
yet unexplained intelligence that this corps, 35,000 strong, had 
been sent to another destination. The news was received 
in the army with stupefaction, although the majority could 
not foresee the deplorable consequences of a step taken, it 
must be supposed, with no evil intention, but certainly with 
inconceivable recklessness. Fifteen days before, this measure, 
although it must always have been injurious, would have been 
much less so. We might have made arrangements upon a 
new basis. Taken when it was it deranged a whole system of 
machinery fairly at work. Among the divisions of McDow- 
ell's corps, there was one, that of Franklin, which was more 
regrettel than all the others, as well on account of the troops 



42 THE AKMY OF THE POTOMAC. 

themselves, as ot" their cominuiulers. The General-in-Chief .iad 
bestowed special j)ains on its organization dnring the winter, 
and earnestly diMiiaiidcd its restoration. It was sent back to 
liini without a word of explanation, precisely as it had been 
detached from him. This line division, 11,000 strong, arrived, 
and Ibr a moment the General thonght of intrusting to it alone 
the Gloucester expedition. But this intention was renounced. 

Then came the retlection, that somewhere in these seven 
miles of confederate intrenchments, there must be a weak 
spot. 

Could this spot be found and forced, the usual result in such 
cases would ])robably come to pass. The enemy at either ex- 
tremity would suppose themselves to have been turned, and 
would become demoralized. If we then continued to pour a 
constantly increasing force of our troops through the opening 
thus made, we would probably inflict upon the army thus cut in 
two one of those disasters which settle the fate of a campaign. 

This weak point, it was supposed, had been found near the 
centre of the lines of Warwick Creek, at a place called Lee's 
Mill. The bottom here was firm, the water waist deep. In 
fi'ont of the hostile works was a kind of open plateau, upon 
which a strong artillery force might be brought up to shatter 
them. On the IGtli of April, an attempt was made at this 
point. Eighteen field-pieces opened fire at 500 yards on the 
confederate batteries, and silenced them, and the creek wag 
then ])assed l)y some Vermont companies. 

They advanced gallantly, carried a rifle-pit, but their am- 
munition had been wetted in passing the stream; they were 
not supported, and retired after losing many of their number, 
'Jb(,' project thus Ijcguu was, no doubt, found to present un- 
.breseen diflicuhies, and it was at once abandoned. 

This operation, like that against Gloucester, not being feasi' 
ble, we were forced to undertake the siege of the uninvested 
fortifications of Yoiktown. 



THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 43 

The various attempts at feeling our way had unfortunately 
consumed mucli time, and tlie siege itself was to consume 
much more, although it was pushed forward with great ener- 
gy. Ten thousand laborers, constantly relieved, were set at 
work on the abattis, through the woods, roads, trenches and 
batteries. It was a curious spectacle. A narrow arm of the 
sea, fringed by a close and vigorous vegetable growtli, made 
up of trees of all kinds, living and dead, draped in vines and 
mosses, wound up towards the front of our attack. This had 
been used as our first parallel. Bridges were thrown over it, 
roads had been opened on the banks among the tulip ti-ees, 
the Judas trees, and the azaleas in full flower. From this 
natural parallel others set out, made by human hands and rap- 
idly approaching the works. The defenders kept up on all 
that they saw or suspected, a tremendous fire. Tiie shells 
whistled from every side among the high trees, tore off the 
branches, scared the horses, but did very little damage. No- 
body heeded them. In the evenings when all the squads 
came in in good order, their guns on their backs and their 
picks on their shoulders, the firing increased, as if the enemy 
had marked the hour. We used to go to the front for this 
cannonade, as if it were an entertainment, and when on fine 
spring evenings the troops came in gaily to the sound of mar- 
tial music through -the blossoming woods, and when the bal- 
loon which we used for our reconnoissances was floating in the 
air, one easily believed himself to be enjoying a festival, and 
was glad for a moment to forget the miseries of the war. 

All this time the siege went on. A powerful artillery force 
had been brought up, not without difficulty. Rifled guns of 
100 and even of 200 pounds calibre, 13-inch mortars, were 
got ready to batter the works. Fourteen batteries had been 
built, armed and provisioned. If we had not yet opened a 
fire it was because we meant it to be general from all sides, 
and we were only waiting to get into a complete state cf pre- 



44 THE ARMY OF TlIK POTOMAC. 

I)ar;itii«ii. It Nvas iin])ossil)lo, liowever, to resist the desire we 
had of living our 200-ponndors. Tliese enormous guns were 
tvorked with inconceivable ease. Four men were able to load 
and point them with no more trouble than our old-i'ashioned 
2-i-pounders. At three miles their fire was admirably accu- 
rate. One day one of these huge guns had a sort of duel 
with a somewhat snuillcr rilled piece mounted on one of the 
bastions of Yorktown. Tiie curious upon our side got upon 
the parapets to watch the effect of every shot, then whilst we 
were discussing our observations the sentinel would warn us 
that the enemy in his turn was firing ; but the distance was so 
great that between the discharge and the arrival of the ball 
everybody had time enough to step quietly down and get 
under the shelter of the parapet. Nevertheless, such was the 
excellence of the firing that you M'ere sure to see the enorm- 
ous missile pass over the very place where the group of spec 
tators had a moment before been standing. It would then go 
on and strike the ground 50 yards in the rear, its cap would 
explode and it would burst, throwing into the air a cloud of 
earth as high as the jot of the water- works at St. Cloud. 

These new and curious artillery experiences were not the 
only interesting feature of this siege. In 1781 Yorktown had 
been besieged by the combined forces of France and America 
under AVashington and Rochambeau, and this operation had 
resulted in the celebrated cajtitulation which secured the 
independence of the United States. At every step we came 
upon the traces of this first siege. Here in this decrepid 
hovel Lafayette had fixed his head-quarters ; there the French 
trenches began ; there, again, lay the camp of the regiments 
of Bourlion ami of Saintonge. In other directions apjieared 
the still visible cntrenchnu'nis of Rochambeau, upon which 
the almost tropic^al vt'gctation of the country had reasserted 
it em]»irc. Further on was jioinlc*! out to us the house inhab- 
itcid l)v tlic two coiiinuuidrrs. JJrliiud these same fortilica- 



THE ARMY OF THE POrOMAC. 45 

tions of Y jrktown, Cornwallis and his Englishmen iiacl so long 
withstood the assault of the allied armies. Upon yonder 
ramparts the blood of our soldiers had sealed an alliance un- 
broken down to our own times ; an alliance to which the 
United States once owed their prosperity and their greatness. 
Not to speak of the emotion with which I found myself in 
this distant spot surrounded by recollections of national glory ; 
not to speak of the interest with which I examined the traces 
of scenes of war, some of the actors in which I had myself 
been permitted to see, I could not but ask myself if by a strange 
caprice of destiny these same ramparts might not behold the 
undoing of the work of 178 i, and if from the slow siege of 
Yorktown, both the ruin of the great Republic and the rup- 
ture of the Franco-American alliance might not be fated to 
come forth. The destiny of the Union was in the hand of the 
God of Battles. No one could foresee his decrees ; but the 
Franco-American alliance, that alliance which had so well 
served all generous ideas, was more plainly dependent upon 
human will. Doubtless the strife before Yorktown was a civil 
war, and although the federals were fighting for the most just 
of all possible causes, nothing absolutely obliged France to 
send her soldiers to aid them. But the sword of France 
makes itself felt afar as well as nearer home, and the Ameri- 
cans of the North could have wished to see their ancient 
allies throw their influence in favor of the side on which were 
arrayed justice and liberty. 

It was plain that with the powerful means which we were 
using the fall of Yorktown was purely a question of time. 
Crushed under the weight of the fire about to be opened upon 
them, without casemates to shelter their troops, with no other 
defences than earthworks and palisades, the rebels had no 
chance of prolonged resistance. Everything was ready for the 
decisive blow. Not only was a terrible bombardment to be 
directed against the city : not only were the choicest troops 



46 THE AR5[\' OF THE POTOMAC. 

Belected tor the grand assault Avliich -was to fi)llo\v the Lom- 
liardnu'iit, hut tlie steam transports -waited only tor tlic signal 
to ]»ass up into the York river as soon as the place should fall, 
and lajid the forces of Franklin high up on the line of the 
confederate retreat. A part of the forces were actually kept 
on hoard of the transports. In a few hours they would have 
passed over the distance which it would have taken the enemy 
two days to traverse. Driven by storm from Yorktown, fol- 
lowed u]i step for step, intercepted on their road by fresh 
troops, the anny of the South would have been in a very criti- 
cal ]>osition, and the Federals would have found what they so 
greatly needed, a brilliant military success. 

This tiiey needed, not only to escape the serious evils with 
which they were threatened b}' a prolongation of the cam- 
paign ; the political was perhaps more urgent than the military 
necessity. A victory and a decisive victory alone, could bring 
on the re-establishment of the Union, that object of the ardent 
pursuit of all American patriots who set the greatness and the 
prosperity of their country above the passions of parties and 
of sects. Bull Eun, by humliling one of the adversaries, had 
for a time shut the door upon all hopes of reconciliation. As 
goon as the legal government of the country should have re- 
covered its ground, and proved its strength, it would again 
become possible to negotiate and to establish, by a common 
agreement, the fraternal bonds of the Union. To secure this, 
it was necessary to lose no time. The minds of men were em- 
bittering on either side ; interests, individual ambitions, foreign 
intrigues were daih' exerting a more active interposition be- 
tween the two (•aini)s, and every delay must make the work 
of reconciliation more difficult. A great success of the 
'L'deral anny before Yorktown was then of vital importance 
to the Government at AVashington. Unfortunately, the con- 
federate leaders and generals saw and felt this also ; and like 
skillful men they t- ok tlie best way of preventing it. 



^7 



THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 47 

In tlie night of the 3cl and 4th of May, Yorktown and 
the h'nes of Warwick river were evacuated. This evacua- 
tion must have been commenced several days before, but it 
had been managed with great secresy and great skill. On 
the 3d, the fire of the hostile batteries had greatly increased 
in intensity. The shells from the rifled guns flew in all direc- 
tions with a length of range which had not before been sus- 
pected. The accuracy of their tire* forced us to abandon all 
the signal posts we had established in the tops of the tallest 
trees. The balloon itself, whenever it rose in the air, was sa- 
luted with an iron hail of missiles which were, however, per- 
fectly harmless. The object of all this was to mask the 
retreat, and it was perfectly successful. 

On the 4th, at daybreak, the men in the rifle-pits of the 
advance saw no signs of the foe before them. A few of 
them ventured cautiously up to the very lines of the enemy. 
All was as silent as death. Soon suspicion grew into cer- 
tainty ; it was flashed upon the head-quarters by all the 
telegraphic lines which connected them with the differ- 
ent corps of the army. Tlie confederates had vanished, 
and with them all chances of a brilliant victory. The impos- 
sibility of any naval cooperation, and the fatal measures by 
which the Army of the Potomac lost the corps of McDowell, 
had combined with the firmness of the enemy to prevent us 
from taking Yorktown by storm. "We had next spent a whole 
month in constructing gigantic works now become useless, 
and now, after all this, the confederates fell back, satisfied 
with gaining time to prepare for the defence of Richmond 
and henceforth relying on the season of heats and sickness for 
aid against the federal army encamped among the marshes of 

* ^ote. — 1 am not sure whether I ought to attribute to this accuracy an extraordi- 
nary fact which occurreii' during the siege. Some topographical engineers were 
busy estimating a relief. They were perceived, and a single shot was tired at 
them. The shell, fired from an immense distance, burst upou the circunifertntor 
ond killed the officer and his assistant. 



48 THE AU.MV OF THE TOTOMAC. 

Virginia. The federals, whose number was constantly lesscn- 
ing, saw before them the perspective of a campaign whicli 
threatened to become more and more laborious, diminishing 
daily as its perils increased the chances of an amicable ad- 
ju.-tment. Here was matter enough foi- serious and even for 
inrlancliiily rriU'ctinii : but in war moments are precious, and 
it is weakness to lose them in lamentations. It was probable 
that the enemy was at no great distance. lie could not yet 
have gained any considerable start, and by throwing ourselves 
rapidly upon his track we might at least come up with his rear 
guard, tling it into disorder, and make some prisoners. 

A few hours after the news was received of the evacuation, 
the whole army was in motion. Stoneman's cavalry first 
crossed the intrcuchments. As they passed on, several infer- 
nal nuichines, cowardly instruments of destruction, burst 
under the horses' feet and killed several men. 

We had oidy time to cast a single glance upon the formid- 
able works thrown up by the enemy, upon which he had 
abandoned 72 pieces of artillery ; then passing swiftly through 
his deserted camps and burning nuigazines, amid which the 
sound of sudden explosions was heard from time to time, we 
took the road to Williamsburg, a small city situated upon a 
])oint at which the Yii-ginian peninsula, shut closely in be- 
tween two arms of the sea, oilers a strong and defensible posi- 
tion. It was upon this isthmus that we expected to come up 
witli the rear guard of the enemy. 

Stoneman marched rapi^lly upon Williamsburg with all the 
cavalry and tour batteries of horse artillery. The infantry 
followed as fast as the few an<l narrow I'oads would ])ermit. 
There were i-eally oidy two of these roads — one direct from 
Yorktown, the other coming from the left of the federal posi- 
tions. The hitter traversed Warwick river at Lee's Mill, on 
a biidgc which it to..k three hours to rebuild. When Smith's 
division, which was the lii'st to cross, had advanced a short 



THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. •49 

distance it met a portion of the confederate army, which gave 
way and fill back before it. Smith informed McClellan of 
this, and the General, who thought that Stoneman might out- 
strip the hostile column and cut it off at the fork of the roads 
before Williamsburg, sent orders to that officer to hasten his 
march. Unfortunately, it was not easy to advance rapidly. 
The roads, and particularly that road taken by the cavalry, 
were narrow and full of frightful morasses from which it was 
difficult to extricate the cannon, although the weather had 
been fine and dry for several days. At any other time we 
should have paused to admire the scenery of this lovely region 
covered with virgin forests broken at intervals by a clearing, 
and recalling by its aspect the smiling districts of Devonshire, 
that Provence of England. But now we only looked upon 
these forests as the hiding places of an enemy. The young 
Duke of Chartres, on a scout with forty horsemen, suddenly 
fell upon a confederate brigade. This was the rear guard of 
the column described by Smith. The prince brought back 
some fifteen prisoners and gave his information to Stoneman, 
who hurried his advance to reach this column before it should 
join the body of the hostile forces supposed to be at Williams- 
burg. Soon the fork of the two roads was reached, the one 
leading from Yorktown, by which Stoneman was advancing, 
and the other leading from Lee's Mill, by which the confed- 
erates were retreating. But the moment that the fed- 
eral cavalry came out upon this fork, it was received by an 
artillery tire from numerous field works erected in front of 
Williamsburg. A rapid survey explained the position. As 
we have stated, the Virginian peninsula narrows towards Wil- 
liamsburg. Two creeks or bays, the one opening out of the 
James, the other out of the York, and both terminating in 
marshes, make this neck of land still smaller, and form be- 
tween the marshes a kind of isthmus upon which the roads 
from Jjeeh Mill and from Yorktown debouch. To the south 
4 



50 TllK ATIMY OF THE POTOMAC. 

of tlio istlnnus, tliat is to say in the direction of the approach 
from Yorktown, tlie country is densely wooded. To the nortli, 
oil tlio ccnti-.iry, tliat is to say towards AVillianisburg, it is 
c-pon and exhibits hirge iiekls of grain hcliiiKl wliich the spires 
and towers uf the city are visible. Upon this open space, the 
enemy had erected iirst, a considerable bastioned work, Fort 
Magruder, placed ujton the roadway opposite the isthmus, 
and then a series of redoubts and rifie-])its fronting every part 
of the marsh over wliich it ^vould have been possible for in- 
fantry to advance, lie had then constructed vast abattis in 
such wise as to exjiose to his artillery and niusketr}" the ap- 
proaches of the marsh and of the foilc of the roads. It was 
in the midst ot' these abattis that the federal cavalry deljouched 
upon tlie trot; and liere it was, that they were saluted with a 
filiower of shells from Fort Magruder. In the space between 
this fort and the redoubts, the confederate foot and horse were 
drawn uj) in order of battle. Stoneman, seeing that the enemy 
covered the tork of the roads, and perceiving that it would be 
impossible for liim to maintain his ground before them, under- 
took to dislodge them l)y a vigorous blow. lie threw forward 
all his hoi-se artillery, which took up its positions brilliantly in 
front of the abattis, and replied to the fire of the redoubts ; 
an<l he then oi-dered his cavalry to charge. The sixth federal 
cavalry dashed forward gallantly to meet the cavalry of tlie 
confederates, passed dii-ectly under the cross-fire of the redoubts, 
and rode into one of those fights with the cold steel wdiich have 
become so lai'e in these days. Nevei'theless, this was all so 
much valor tlii-owii awav. The enemy did not distui'b himself ; 
he ha<l the advantages of number and position. To carry these 
works with cavalry was imj)Ossible. Men and particularly 
horses, bc^^an to I'all. " 1 have lost thirty-one men," said Majoi 
Williams, who had lc(l ihc chai-ge of the sixth, gracefully sal- 
uting (ieneral Stoneman with his sabre, with that air of deter- 
minal ion which says, "wc will go a it again, but it's of no use." 



^7 

THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 51 

Stoneman then ordered the reti-eat. We repassed the abattis, 
and falling back to a clearing about half a mile distant, there 
awaited the arrival of the infantry to renew the engagement. 
Unlnckil}^, in traversing the marsh, a gun of the horse-artil- 
lery got buried in the mud and could not be extricated. In 
vain wore the teams doubled. The enemy concentrated his 
fire of shells on that point and killed all the horses. Tlie gun 
had to be left. It was the first which the army had lost, and 
the men were inconsolable. In the evening we renewed our 
efibrts to recover it, but the abattis were filled with hostile 
sharpshooters who made it impossible to approach. The sun 
was going down. The confederate columns coming from Lee's 
Mill, escaped and took shelter behind the entrenchments of 
Williamsburg. As to the federal infantry, it came up very 
late. The roads over which it passed had been tremendously 
obstructed. At nightfall General Sumner, who had assumed 
command, wished to make an attempt to carry the works. 
Unfortunately it was completely dark before the troops de- 
bouched from the woods and the marshes, and everything had 
to be put off to the next day. Upon this supervened one of 
thos€ vexatious mishaps which are too common in war, and 
of which this array did not escape its full share during this 
trying campaign. The rain began to fall in torrents and 
poured down incessantly for thirty consecutive hours. The 
country became one vast lake, the roads were channels of 
liquid mud. The troops dismally bivouacked for the night 
where they stood. 

Kext day the battle began again, but, of course, in circum- 
stances unfavorable to the federals. The two roads leading to 
Williamsburg were crowded with troops. Upon that to the left 
from Lee's Mill, were the divisions of Hooker and Kearney be- 
longing to Heintzelman's corps — but they were separated from 
each other by an enormous multitude of wagons loaded down 
with baggage, and for the most part, fast in the mud. Upon 



52 THE ARMY OF THE rOTOMAC. 

that to tlie right t\vo' other divisions -were moving forward 
Avith still greater difficulty. Such was the condition of the 
erouiid that the cannon sank over the axle into the rand. This 
medley of men and haggage thrown pellmell into narrow and 
flooded roads Imd fallen into considerable disorder. In the 
United States there is no such tiling as a corps of the General 
Staff. The American system of " every man for himself," 
individually ap])lied by the officers and soldiers of each corps 
to one another, is also applied by the corps themselves to 
their reciprocal relations. There is no special branch of the 
service whose duty it is to regulate, centralize and direct the 
movements of the army. In such a case as this of which we 
are speaking, we should have seen the General Staff Officers 
of a French army taking care that nothing should impede the 
advance of the troops, stopping a file of wagons here and 
ordering it out of the road to clear the way, sending on a de- 
tail of men there to repair the roadway or to draw a cannon 
out of the mire, in' order to communicate to every corps com- 
mander the orders of the General-in-Chief. 

Here nothing of the sort is done. The functions of tlie 
adjutant-general are limited to the transmission of the orders 
of the general. lie has nothing to do with seeing that they 
are executed. The general has no one to bear his orders but 
aides-de-camp who have the best intentions in the world, and 
are excellent at repeating mechanically a verbal order, but to 
whom nobody pays much attention if they undertake to exercise 
any initiative whatever. Down to the present moment although 
this want of a General Staff had been often felt, its consequences 
liad not been serious. We had the telegraph, which followed 
tlie army everywhere and kept up communications between 
the difierent corps; the generals could converse together and 
inform each nth(n- of anything that it was impoitant to know. 
Jiut once on the march this resource was lost to us, and so 
farewell to our cnininnnications ! 



THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 53 

The want of a General Staff was not less severely felt in 
obttining and transmitting the information necessary at the 
moment of an impending action. » No one knew the country ; 
the maps were so defective that they were useless. Little was 
known about the fortified battle-field on which the army was 
about to be engaged. Yet this battle-field had been seen and re- 
connoitred the day before by the troops which had taken part 
in Stoneraan's skirmish. Enough was surely known of it for us 
to combine a plan of attack and assign to every commander 
his own part in the work. No, this was not so. Every one 
kept his observations to himself, nr^from iHwill, but because it 
was nobody's jpecial duty to cio *his general work. It was a 
defect in the orgaiiization, and witli tin best e^emeucs in the 
world an army which is not or,;-inizrd cannot expect great 
success. It is fortunate if it escape great disaster. 

Thanks to this constitutional defect of the federal armies, 
Hooker's division which led the column on the left hand roat 
and had received, the day before, a general order to march 
upon Williamsburg, came out on the morning of the 5th 
upon the scene of Stoneman's cavalry fight without the least 
knowledge of what it was to meet there. Received as soon 
as it appeared with a steady fire from the hostile works, it de- 
ployed resolutely in the abattis and went into action. But it 
came up little by little and alone, whilst the defence was 
carried on by from 15 to 20,000 men strongly entrenched. 
The odds were too great. 

Hooker, who is an admirable soldier, held his own for some 
time, but he had to give way and fall back, leaving in the 
woods and in these terrible abattis some two thousand of his 
men killed and wounded, with several of his guns which he 
could not bring off. The enemy followed him as he fell back. 
The division of General Kearney having passed the crowded 
road, and marching upon the guns at the pas de course, re- 
established the battle. The fight had now rolled from the 



5i TiiH ai:mv of the POTOMAC. 

edges of tbo plain into the lb rest, and it was sLurp, f(,r the 
enemy M'as strongly reintbrced. The lederals fought not less 
iiniily, encouraged by their chiefs, Hooker, lleintzelman, and 
Kearney. Kearney in especial, who lost an arm in Mexico, 
and fought witli the French at the Muzaia and at Solferino, had 
displayed the finest courage. All his aids had fallen around 
liiin, and left alone he had electritied lus men by his intrepid- 
ity. During all this time the part of the army massed on the 
road to the i-ight renuiined passive. A single division only 
luid come up, and the generals in command could not resolve 
to throw it into the engagement without seeing its supports. 
These supports were delayed by the swollen streams, the en- 
cumbered roads, the shattered wao-ons stickino; in the mud. 

But all the while the sound of Hooker's musketry was in 
our cars, llis division was cut up and falling back. His guna 
had been heard at first in front, then on one side, and they were 
receding still. The luills and the shells be«;an to whistle and 
shatter the trees over the fresh division as it stood immova- 
ble and expectant. 

It was now three o'clock, and the generals resolved to act. 
One divisu)!) passed through the woods to flank the regiments 
which weie driving ]lookei, while to the extreme right a 
brigade passed the creek on a.i old mill bridge, which the 
enemy had failed to secure, and debouched upon the flank of 
the Williamsburg works. The confederates did not expect 
this attack, \vliicli, if successful, must sweep everything be- 
fore it. They disinitched two brigades, which advanced 
resolutely thnuigh the corn fields to drive back the federals. 
The latter coolly allowed their foes to come up, and received 
lliciu with a trciiKiidoiis lire of artillery. Tlu confederates 
iiDshakcn, pii.--l.(Ml on wltliin thirty yards of ihc cannon's 
mouth, hhouling, " r>ull Uiiu I UuU Run!" as the Swiss used 
to shout, " (iransoii I ( Iruusnn I '' There, however, they wav- 
ered, and the IbdciaMiciK lal Hancock, seizing the moment 



/. / 

THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 55 

cried to his soldiers, as he waved his cap, " Now, gentlemcu, 
the bayonet ! " and charged with his brigade, The enemy 
could not withstand the shock, broke and fled, strewing the 
field with his dead. At this very moment General McClellan, 
who had been detained at Yorktown, appeared on the field. 
It was dusk, the night was coming on, the rain still falling in 
torrents. On three sides of the plateau on whicli the general 
was, the cannon and the musketry were rattling uninterrupt- 
edly. The success of Hancock had been decisive, and the 
reserves brought up by the General-in-Chief, charging upon 
the field settled the affair. Then it was that I saw General 
McClellan, passing in front of the Sixth cavalry, give his hand 
to Major Williams with a few words on his brilliant charge of 
the day before. The regiment did not hear what he said, but 
it knew what he meant, and from every heart went up one 
of those masculine, terrible shouts, which are only to be heard 
on the field of battle. These shouts, taken up along the whole 
line, struck terror to the enemy. We saw them come upon 
the parapets and look out in silence and motionless upon the 
scene. Then the firing died away and night fell on the com- 
bat which in America is called " the battle of Williamsburg. 



IV. 

The next day dawned clear and cloudless. The atmosphero 
had that purity which in warm countries succeeds a storm ; 
the woods breathed all the freshness of a fair spring ji^iorning. 
All around us lay a smiling landscape, decked with splendid 
flowers new to European eyes ; but all this only deepened the 
mournful contrast of the battle field, strewn with the dead and 
dying, with wrecks and ruin. The confederates had evacuated 
their works during the night. We soon entered them and 



56 THE ARMY OF TIIK POTOMAC. 

■\vatclied the blue lines of the federal infantry as they march- 
ed M'ith banners flying into the town of Williamsburg to 
the sound of 3xpl »ding magazines and caissons. Shortly after 
the General's stat: came in by a broad fine street, bordered with 
acacias. All the shops were slint, but the inhabitants for the 
most part wore to be seen in their doorways and windows, 
looking on us with a sombre, anxious air. The negroes alone 
were smiling. Many of them put on the most grotesquely 
victorious airs, or decamped in the direction of Fortress Mon- 
roe, that is to say, of freedom, carrying their wives and 
children with them in small carts. From all the public 
buildings, churches, colleges and the like waved the yellow 
flag. They were crowded with the wounded left there by the 
enemy. At the end of a broad street, we debouched upon a 
handsome square, ornamented with a marble statue of Lord 
Botetourt, once governor of Yirginia, and surrounded by the 
buildings of a celebrated college founded by the English 
Government Avhen Yirginia was a pet colony. The wounded 
were lying iii)on the very steps of the college porticoes. 

General McClellan's first thought was for the relief of all 
this sufi'ering. He dispatched a flag of truce to the confeder- 
ate rear-guard, to request them to send in surge nis to look 
after their wounded, promising them perfect freedom of 
action. A number of these medical oflicers soon arrived, 
dressed in the dull-gray confederate uniform with the green 
collar, which gave tlieni the appearance of Austrian Chas- 
seurs. 

This duty done, the next thing was to station sentinels foi 
the maintenance of exact discipline. This precaution wag 
superlluous, lor ii" the obedience of the federal soldiers to their 
officers is not whiit it should be, tor the good of the service, 
I venture to believe that no army has ever shown more res- 
pect fDr non-r-ond)atants and ])rivnte property. During the 
■whole time of my ] resencc with tiie Army of the Potomac, 



THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 5t 

the only instance of disorder wliieli came to my knowledge, 
^■vas the pillage of a garret filled with the finest Virginia 
tobacco, which was discovered in an abandoned barn. Let 
me add that the circumstances made this strict observance of 
discipline particularly meritorious. Tlie troops encamped 
around "Williamsburg after the battle which we have just des- 
cribed were for a short time in want of provisions in conse- 
quence of the impracticable state of the roads, and they 
endured with resignation the hosti]e attitude of the inhab- 
itants who met their offers to pay in specie for food with an 
unanimous refusal. After the first moment of fear had 
passed, and it was evident that there was no ground for alarm, 
the ladies of the town might have been seen ostentatiously 
carrying to the wounded of their own party the refreshments 
which could not be procured for the wounded federals ; and 
whenever, followed by their negro servants carrying well 
filled baskets, they met a federal soldier on the sidewalk, 
they made a point of gathering up their dresses in haste as if 
to avoid the contact of some unclean animal. The victors only 
smiled at these childish and ill-bred demonstrations. Other 
troops in their place might have been less patient. 

The General fixed his head-quarters in the house which the 
confederate General Johnston had occupied the day before, 
for it was no longer with Magruder that we were dealing. 
Johnston is considered by friends and foC'^, and especially by 
his old comrades of the regular army, as a warrior of the first 
rank. He is reputed to unite great personal courage with an 
iron will, and a remarkable capacity for taking in a whole 
battle field at a glance. "With the fine intellect of Jefierson 
Davis to conceive, his omnipotence to prepare, and Johnston 
to execute their plans, the confederates were in good hands, as 
we very plainly saw. By holding his position for two days 
before Williamsburg, Johnston had given time for his trains 
and f : the majar part of his troops to move quietly ofl 



58 THE ARMY OF THE PC TOMAC. 

throni.',li tlie narrow countrj roads ; and notwithstanding^ the 
ruin which liad reduced these roads to a dei)lorahle c(Mi{lition, 
lie reached tlie upper \ ork river two days after the l^attle of 
AVilliams])ui'u-, in lime to engage the troops of Franklin, then 
just diseudjarked, and so complete the protection of his 
retreat. "We were next to meet him before Richmond. 

The I'ederal army passed three days at AVilliamsburg look- 
ing uj) the wouuded who were scattered through the woods, 
and burying the dead. The wounded were sent off by water 
to the Xorth on board of those large steamboats which are so 
famous for their comfort and their elegance. Thanks to the 
creeks which cut up the whole country, these boats, came up 
and took the wouiuled almost from the battle lield. As to the 
dead they were buried where they lay. On the side of the 
enemy they were numerous ; we counted sixty-three in a 
single rille-i»it. General McClellan sent a few squadrons in 
pursuit of the enemy, and these horsemen had several pas- 
sages at arms with the rear guard. The tirst day many pris- 
oners were taken and eight cannon ; but after the second day 
the retreat became orderly and the pursuit almost purposeless. 
Moreover, if the enemy lost some of his guns, he carried off 
an almost ecpial number, ca])tured from Hooker's division, 
wliich were used as trophies to kindle a zeal already some- 
what cooled by his long and continued retreats. The mass of 
the federal troops was detained by the necessity of waiting 
for provisions from Yorktown, the arrival of which was re- 
tiirdcd 1)\- the state of the roads. They came at last, and as 
the line weather di-icd the roails u\> very fast, a two days' 
march brtiuglit iis uj) with the corps which had disembarked 
and established a dejxtt at the head of York river. The Avhole 
army was colU'cte*! ui'ound this jioint and then resumed its 
iiiaich to ilichnioiid along the Panumkey, a jiavigable aftlu- 
»*nt of ihc Voi-k. Nothing could be more picturesque than 
this military nuirch along the banks of a line stream through 



/,1 

THE AKMY OF THE POTOMAC. 59 

a magnificent countrj arrayed in all the wealth cf spring 
v^egetation. The winding conrse of the Panmnkey through a 
v'alley in wliicli meadows of the brightest green alternated 
with wooded hills, offered a perpetual scene of enchantment 
to our eyes. Flowers bloomed everywhere, especially on the 
river banks, which abounded in magnolias, Virginia jessa- 
mines, azaleas and blue lupines. Humming-birds, snakes, and 
strange birds of every hue, sported in the branches and about 
the trunks of the trees. Occasionally we passed a stately 
habitation which recalled the old mansions of rural France, 
witli its large windows in the roof; around it a handsome 
garden, and behind it the slave-cabins. 

As the army was descried in the distance, the inhabitants 
would hang out a white fiag. One of the provost marshal's 
horsemen would dismount at the door, and, reassured by his 
presence, the ladies in their long muslin dresses, surrounded 
by a troop of little negresses with frizzled hair and bare legs, 
would come out upon the verandah and watch the passage of 
the troops. They were often accompanied by old men, with 
strongly marked faces, long, white locks, and broad brimmed 
hats — never by young men. All the men capable of bearing 
arms had been carried off, willy-nilly, by the Government, to 
join in the general defence. If an officer dismounted and 
made Ids bow to the ladies, he was civilly received. The 
classic cup of cold water was offered to him in a gourd fixed 
on the end of a stick, and a melancholy sort of conversation 
followed. Men and women were eager for the news. They 
knew nothing of what was happening ; the censorship of the 
confederate newspapers being complete, and the little news 
they did publish not being often believed. Then the talk 
turned upon the war. The ladies naturally expressed their 
hopes for the success of the side on which their brothers were 
enlisted ; but they longed, above all things, for the end of the 
war and of the incalculable evils it had brought upon the 



(50 THE AiniV OF THE POTOMAC. 

land. "Alas'/ we would reply: " who is to blame? AVho 
kindled this unhappy strife ? AVho fired the first gun Avithou 
a reason or a motive?" They would make no answer, but 
their glances wouhl wander meclnuiically over the black heads 
crowded in the doors of the negro huts. We never spoke of 
slavery in these interviews; to utter the word "slave" would 
have sufficed to c;dl nj) into the most amiable eyes, an expres- 
sion of anxiety and of hatred. 

At other times we would lind the white owners fled, and 
nobody left but the negroes, with whom we spoke of other 
matters. I remember a mulatto woman who called our atten- 
tion with an air of pride to her son, a fine, bright yellow child 
of some lour years, with these significant words: "lie is the 
son of a white man ; he is M'orth 400 dollars. I began at 
fifteen, and I am nineteen now. I have four already." 

So from point to point we moved along the river. The gun- 
boats went first and cx|)lored the country before us ; then 
came the topographical officers, moving through the woods^ 
Avith an escort of cavalry, reconnoitering the country, and 
sketching by the eye and the compass provisional maps, 
which were photographed at head-quarters for the use of the 
Genci-als. The next day, with the help of these maps, the ar- 
my would get into motion, mingled in masses with its im- 
mense team of wagons. Aljout one-fourth of each regiment 
was occupied in escorting the maleriA of the corps, piled up, 
provisions, ammiinifion, tents and furniture on M'agons, at the 
rate of ten to ;i battalion. Ibit for the absence of women, we 
might have been taken lor an armed emigration, rather than 
for soldiers on the march. 

The fighting force marclied by brigades, followed by their 
baggage, and these long files of wagons each draMu by four 
liorses or six mules, and driven by a single postilion, made 
the army stretch upon llioc iiai'i'ow forest paths over an im- 
inenire space of country, llenee followed delays equally im 



THE ARMY OP THE POTOMAC. 61 

mense ; for long marches could not have been made without 
leaving the rear of the columns broken and scattered in the 
woods by night. Six miles was the extreme limit of our day's 
march. Sometimes we may have done better ; detached corps 
relieved of all impediments made some long day's marches, but 
these were exceptions. The troops were in excellent condition. 
The men were vigorous, strong and intelligent in appearance. 
The uniform of the whole army was the same ; light blue 
trousers, commonly tucked into the boots, and a blouse or 
jacket or short tnnic of dark blue. Some red mark on the 
dress distinguished the artillery, a touch of yellow the cav- 
alry. The common head-dress was the Icepi^ but many wore 
a soft black felt hat, with gilded ornaments. The oiEcers, 
clad like the soldiers, were distinguished by small gilt straps 
on the shoulder, and a pui-plish sash. Nothing can be more 
simple, more comfortable, or more soldier-like than this uni- 
form when it is properly worn. In the evening, when we 
came to a halt, the camj)s were formed with much order and 
^regularity. The shelter-tents of the soldiers were put up in 
the twinkling of an eye. The staffs planted theirs, which were 
larger and more commodious. The head-quarters was fixed 
in some central position, with the tent of the General-in-Chief 
in the middle, and two parallel ranges of tents on either side. 
Tlie cavalry officers brought in their reports of their recon- 
noissances and of their constant skirmishes with the enemy. 
The telegraphers brought on their wires, fastened as usual upon 
posts, or enveloped in gutta percha and unrolled along the 
ground from a rapidly driven wagon, which was followed by 
the operators on horseback with the apparatus slung from 
their shoulders. All the branches of the service were organ- 
ized, and the printing office worked as regularly as it could 
have done at "Washington. 

Let us do justice to the Americans. They understand this 
camp-life better than anybody else. Their locomotive habits, 



G-2 THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 

tlie ituuiliuritv of many of tliciii witli tlie patriarclial sjiecta- 
cle of emifrrant columns moving across the Western prairies, 
the nomadic life which their officers have led among the 
Indian tribes, all these things fit them beyond any other sol- 
diers in the workl for this kind <if life. This encampment of a 
hundred tli(»u,-and men, the establishment of this city of tents, 
was a really curious sight, it recalled the descriptions of the 
Bible : but there was little that was biblical in the forest of 
transport ships, most of them steamers, which came up by 
water under a cloud of smoke as soon as the camp was fixed, 
and blowing off steam with a loud noise, hauled in to the banks 
and improvised wharves, which soon became scenes of extra- 
ordinary activity. Thousands of wagons hastened in from 
every side by roads which the axe had opened for them in a 
few minutes, and returned again loaded with all the com- 
modities required by an army : Inscuit, salted meat, coffee, 
sugar, barley, hay, corn. Then the &ick were embarked, and 
alas ! the number of these constantly increased, for the 
season was at once rainy and intensely hot, and these lovely 
meadows of the Pamunkey gave birth to deadly fever. Tlien 
night would come on disturbed only by the tedious cry of the 
mocking-bird. With the next morning the flotilla and the 
army would resume their march, leaving behind them nature 
silent, but deflowered by their ]^assage. 

On May the Kith we reached AVlu'te House, a fine building 
once the ])roperty of Washington, and now of his descendants, 
the Lee family. The head of this family, General Lee, was 
one of the chief officers of the confederate army; one of his 
nephews was in the federal ranks. General McClellan, 
always careful to insist upon respect for private property sta- 
tloncil sentinels around the residence of the hostile general, 
forbade any one to enter it, and would not enter it himself, 
lie |il;uitt.'d his te?it ill ii neighboring meadow. This respect 
fur Southern pi-<ij)erty has been made a reproach to the Gene- 



&6 

THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 63 

ral in Congress; the opinion of the army did not take this 
direction ; it endorsed the delicate feeling of its leader. This 
feeling was pushed so far that when a general's servants found 
one day in an abandoned house a basket of chanipaigne, the 
General sent it back again conspicuously the next by an aid- 
de-camp. We may smile at this puritanical austerity to which 
we are not accustomed in Europe. For my own part I ad- 
mit that I always admired it. 

At White House the Pamunkey ceased to be navigable. 
The York river railroad, which unites Richmond with this 
river, crosses it at this point by a bridge which the enemy had 
destroyed, and then runs in almost a straight line to the Yir- 
ginian capital. This road had been scarcely injured. Having 
neither embankments nor viaducts it was not easy to destroy 
it. A few rails only had been removed, and were soon re- 
placed ; all the rolling stock had been run off, but the federal 
army had locomotives and cars on board of its transports. 
The whole flotilla was unloaded at White House, where a vast 
depot was established under the protection of the gunboats, 
and all the bustle of a seaport soon became visible. The army 
recommenced its march to Richmond, following the line of 
the railway, which was to be the vital artery of its oj^erations. 

During all this time what were the confederates doing? 
We have seen Johnston successfully delivering battle against 
the federal advance, on the 5th of May, at Williamsburg, 
and against Franklin's corps on the 7th, at the head of York 
river, in order to gain time for the bulk of his army to fall 
back undisturbed upon Richmond. Cavalry reconnoissances 
pushed in all directions had demonstrated the fact that almost 
the whole hostile army had recrossed the Chickahominy. 
Everything led us to believe that we should not meet it again 
excepting under the walls of Richmond ; at the same time 
everything indicated that the confederates were concentrating 
in their capital for a desperate resistance. 



64 THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 

AVc liad captured prisoners belonging to a corps wliicli 
had, up to this time, been stationed opposite Burnside in 
Xorth Carolina ; it was, therefore, plain that this corps had 
joined the army of Johnston. We soon learned the evacua- 
tion of iS'urlV)lk and the occupation of that city by General 
Wool. It was evident that Davis could only have made 
up his mind to this sacrifice because he wished to draw 
into Richmond Huger and the 18,000 men who had up to 
this time held the great arsenal of Virginia. .Finally the 
confederate leader had ordered a levy en masse of all men 
able to bear arms. They had been sent into camps of in- 
struction, whence they would be incorporated with the old 
reii-imeuts, the effective force of which would thus be doubled. 
The result of all this threatened the army of the Potomac in 
its only superiority, that of numbers. Unhappily, too, while 
the enemy was concentrating and strengthening his forces, 
ours were melting away. We have already seen how at 
Alexandria a division was detached and sent to Fremont. Be- 
fore Yorktown we had lost two other divisions under Mc- 
Dowell. AVc liad since left garrisons in Yorktown, Glouces- 
ter and Williamsburg. We had lost men under fire and by 
disease, as well as by straggling. Nothing came to fill uj) 
the gaps. When an American regiment marches to the war 
it goes as a wliole, and leaves behind it no de2)ots of recruits 
to restore its ranks as they are wasted away. 

It will be easily seen how much reason we had to be anx- 
ious about this diminution of the army, while we knew that 
the confederates were steadily swelling their force, and while 
by plunging more dcc])ly into the heart of the enemy's coun- 
try we were daily moving further from our own base of opera- 
tions, and losing at once the moral and material aid of the na- 
vy, the cooperation of which had hitherto proved so powerful 
und so uscl'ul. 

1 am aware that the evacuation of Norfolk was followed by 



THE ARMY OP THE POTOMAC. 65 

an impoi'tnut event of good auguiy to the federal cause. Tho 
Alerriniac, wliich was no longer commanded by the brav*^ 
Buchanan, and which had now no place of refuge, was burn- 
ed by her new captain. Henceforth James river was opened 
to the federals, but unfortunately it was opened just too late. 
The iron-clad gunboats Galena, Naugatuck and Monitor, ran 
up to within seven miles of Richmond : there they found the 
river barred by a stockade which could not be forced, and its 
lofty banks defended by a battery of heavy guns, which could 
not be silenced. The great gun of the Naugatuck burst : the 
Monitor could not give her cannon elevation enough to reach 
the batteries of " Fort Darling." As to the Galena, her cuirass, 
three inches and a half thick, failed to protect her against 
conical 100-pounders, and she was forced to retire, after a he- 
roic fight, with a large number of her crew placed liors du, 
combat. A land attack upon the forts was found to be neces- 
sary, if the passage was to be forced; but in the face of the 
confederates, massed at a short distance before Richmond, 
such an operation could only have been attempted by the 
whole army. To accomplish it, the moment the news of the 
destruction of the Merrimac reached General McClellan, he 
shoiild have abandoned the plan of campaign which he had 
begun to execute, and sought the James river by a rap- 
id oblique march, in order to combine his operations with 
those of the navy upon that river. To-day, with the added 
experience of the events which actually occurred, I am inclin- 
ed to think this would have been a wiser course to pursue. 
Of course, the passage from the Pamunkey to the James 
would have been dangerous ; the passage of the lower Chick- 
ahominy, or of the Lower James, according as it might have 
been determined upon to operate up the right or up the left 
bank of the latter river, would have been a ditScult and delicate 
ihino- to attempt, with the grand army of the confederates 
hanging upon the flank of the federals. Yet this risk would 
5 



\ 

66 Tlil-: ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 

ii;iv(> ln'cii Ix'ttcr l!i;iii tlie dismal jxjsitioii in which tlio armv 
really lV)iinil itself for a month in the marslies of the Chicku- 
lion)iny. But who could jit that time have foreseen, that at 
the decisive moment of the campaign, inundations unexam- 
])led at that season of the year woidd thwart the efforts and 
])araly/.e tlie movements of the Potomac army, as they did on 
the day of the battle of Fair Oaks ? Or who, again, could fore- 
see tliat the 80,000 nien. assembled before Washington, would 
do nothing, and less than nothing, to aid the army in overcom- 
ing tlie concentration of forces it was called nj)on to encounter? 
We continued, then, our forward movement, and notwith- 
standing the almost constant rains, we were not long I'caching 
the banks of the Chickahomin}', at a place called Bottom 
Bridge, ten miles tVom Richmond, where the York ]-ivcr rail- 
road, which we had been following from AVhite House, crosses 
the river on a bridge temponirily destroyed by the enemy. 
Here we were i'airly at the gates of Richmond. Down to 
this time the campaign, if it had not been brilliant, had at 
least been i't-rtiie in results. Yorktown, one of the most im- 
portant military positions of the enemy, had fallen. Xorfolk, 
tlu! magniiicent ai'senal iVom wdiich the South di'cw the great- 
er j)art of its military stores had been abandoned, and the ne- 
cessity of abandoning it had brought on the destruction of 
tlu! tbrmidaliK' Mei'i-imac. Finally, (jeneral iVIcClellan had 
succeeded in pilching his camp without accident in iVont of 
the capital of the Seceded States, and of their niain army. 
The cojdederates could fall back no further, without losing all 
their prestige in the eyes of their partisans, and of the whole 
world. They were thus driven to accept a decisive battle up- 
on this point. In our actual circumstances, it was no slight 
iiierit to have t'oicrd an adversary back upon such a necessity. 
I know that a hattle ought to have l)een won at this point, 
and that it was not, won. Hut the wliole responsibility of this 
matter hy no means rests u[)on the (ieneral or upon his army. 



C 7 

THE ARMY OP THE POTOMAC. 67 

Who were the men, who by driving him iuto an untimely 
campaign, had revealed to the enemy operations not yet ripe 
for execution ? Was McClellan responsible for that want cf 
unity in the ends and in the action of the government which 
had trammelled the movements of the army since he had 
been deprived of the chief command and supreme directions 
of the forces ? Was McClellan responsible for the systematic 
diminution of his forces, which, in the face of the agglomera- 
tion of the forces of the enemy, had successively deprived 
him, since the campaign had opened, of the division of Blen- 
ker and of two-thirds of McDowell's corps, without sending 
him one solitary man to fill up the gaps made by sickness and 
by the cannon ? In spite of all these obstacles he had reached 
the walls of Richmond, but he had no longer the means of 
striking the great blow which probabl}^ would have ended the 
war. In a hostile country covered with forests, wliere one 
sees nothing and knows little, what appears a simple recon- 
noissance may often prove a serious and general attack. There 
a large force is needed to guard against surprises, and a still 
larger force to secure lines of communication, which cannot 
be broken without danger. 

Evidently we needed reinforcements. Could we obtain 
them ? Could the federals meet, with a powerful concentra- 
tion of troops, that concentration which the enemy had 
effected, and to the reality of which the observations of our 
aeronauts, as well as the statements of deserters, daily bore 
witness? This was the first question w^e had to ask ourselves. 
General Wool from Norfolk, Burnside from North Carolina, 
might send some men, but very few, while around Washing- 
ton more than eighty thousand were collected. Of these 
about one-half were making head against the partisan Jack- 
eon in the valley of the Shenandoah. The rest were collected 
under McDowell at Fredericksburg, sixty miles to the north 
of Richmond. They had rebuilt the railway bridge over tho 



68 THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 

Rappahannock, and in tlircc or Ibnr (lavs tliej niio'lit have 
joined tin.' army of McClollan. They covered nothing at 
Fredericksburg, and were so notoriously useless to the federal 
cause that in the confederate journals they were spoken of as 
the " iifth wheel of the coach." It was known that ]McDowell 
desired ardently to give the lie to these railleries by bringing 
at the decisive moment his assistance to the cause of the 
Union. Accordingly McClellan had no sooner arrived before 
Richmond than he undertook to discover what he had to hope 
for from this quarter, l^o official advices, either from Wash- 
iuffton or from Fredericksburir, had informed him of McDow- 
ell's presence at that point, only sixty miles distant, l)ut rumor 
and probability agreed so well in placing him there that the 
General-in-Chief resolved to make an attempt to establish com- 
munication with bin). On the night of the 26th he sent for- 
ward General Porter's division with a few S(|uadrons of cav- 
alry, in a furious storm, to Hanover Court House, a village 
about twenty miles north of Eichmond, where the railway to 
Fredericksburg crosses the Pamunkoy. The troops of Portef 
moved rapidly, and about midday on the 27th came upon the 
hostile division of liranch, at Hanover Court House. This 
they assailed v.-itli vigor, dispersed it, and took one of its 
guns. Assailed in their turn by confederate troops who had 
siiftercd them to pass by the woods in which they lay hidden, 
the i'ederals turned on their new enemies and scattered them 
also. This brilliant affair cost the federals 400 men, and left 
General Porter in possession of a cannon, of 500 prisoners, 
and of two bridges, one on the Fredericksburg and one on 
the Virginia Central road. The advanced guard of McDow- 
ell was thiMi at IJowling Green, liftecn miles from that of J'or- 
tcr. It needed only an effort of the will ; the two armies were 
united, and the j)Osse8sion of Richmond certain ! Alas ! this 
effort was not made. 1 cannot recall those fatal moments 
without a real .-^iidduir of the heart. Seated in an orciluird in 



THE ARMY OP THE POTOMAC. 69 

the bivouac of Porter, amid the joyous excitement which fol- 
lows a successful combat, I saw ihe Fifth Cavaby bring in 
whole companies of confederate prisoners, with arms and bag- 
gage, their officers at their head. But neither the glad confi- 
dence of the federals nor the discouragement of their enemies 
deceived me, and I asked myself how many of these gallant 
young men who surrounded me, relating their exploits of the 
day before, would pay with their lives for the fatal error which 
was on the point of being committed. Not only did not the 
two armies unite, but the order came from Washington to 
burn the bridges which had been seized. This was the clear- 
est way of saying to the Army of the Potomac, and to its chiefs, 
that in no case could they count on the support of the armies 
of Upper Virginia. 

This iinfortunate step had been taken upon hearing of the 
successful dash which the confederate General Jackson w^as 
then making upon the Upper Potomac. This skillful leader 
ascertaining that the federal forces in that region were broken 
up into a number of small independent corps, under the 
orders of Generals Fremont, Banks, Shields and others, had 
taken advantage of this state of anarchy to give them battle 
one after another. He had driven Banks across the Potomac 
and had created such confusion that he was supposed to be 
on the point of entering "Washington. With more than 
40,000 men to defend that city, with the easily tenable line 
of the Potomac, and the vast entrenched camp which sur- 
rounds the Capital it was not thought to be safe. McDowell 
was summoned in hot haste to join in the pursuit of Jackson. 
McDowell, as was to have been expected, arrived too late. 
But the bridges which might have connected his operations 
with those of McClellan, had been destroyed. It is probable 
that in the confusion which reigned at Washington, the order 
to destroy them was sent for the purpose of preventing the con- 
federates from using them to send reinforcements to Jackson- 



70 THE ARMY OP THE POTOMAC. 

l>ut let US turn iVoin this afflicting spectacle ; let us tum 
from Jackson playing at fast and loose with the four Generals 
opposed to him. lie had carried his point. His daring 
movement had prevented the junction of McDowell with 
McClellan, at the moment when that junction would have 
been decisive of the campaign. Henceforth the Army of the 
l^otomac coidd rely only upon itself. No time was to be lost 
before acting, for every day augmented the disproportion 
between the forces of the adversaries, and it was to be feared 
the federals encamped amid the marshes of the Chickahominy 
would suffer severely from the great heats now setting in. 
"We had been for some days face to face. The federal advance 
was but five miles distant from Richmond. Skirmishes were 
of daily occurrence, and with the feeling on both sides a 
general action was inevitable. General McClellan waited for 
two thin()::s before makino; the attack. He waited for the roads 
which the rain had swamped to become solid and practicable 
for his artillery, and for the completion of the numerous 
bridges which he was throwing over the Chickahominy. 

The character of the localities, the impossibility of quitting 
the railway by which the army was supplied, and the 
necessity of keeping on his guard against any attempt of the 
enemy to turn his position, had forced the General to divide 
his troops int<j two wings on the opposite banks of the river. 
It was consequently most important to be able to mass them 
rapidly, either on the right bank for an ofiensive movement 
against Richmond, or on the left bank against any attempt to 
turn tlic poftitiuii. The latter danger was much to be feared, 
for the confederates had retained possession of several bridges 
on tlic upper Chickahominy, which would permit them to 
occui)y the excellent positions that are to be found on the left 
bank, just so soon as the northern army should abandon 
these potitions. in this way they would have shut us up 
upon the right bank, bU>ck:ided, starved, and reduced to an 



THE ARMY OP THE POTOMAC. 71 



Cf 



extremely critical condition. Unfortunately everytliing drag- 
ged with us. The roads were long in drying, the bridges 
were long in building. "Never have we seen so rainy a sea- 
son," said the oldest inhabitant. " Never did vre see bridges 
so difficult to build," said the engineers. The abominable 
river laughed at all their efforts. Too narrow for a bridge of 
boats, too deep and too muddy for piers, here a simple brook 
some ten yards wide, flowing betwen two plains of quicksand 
in which the horses sank up to the girths and which offered 
no bearings — there divided into a thousand tiny rivulets 
spread over a surface of three hundred yards and traversing 
one of those wooded morasses which are peculiar to trop- 
ical countries, changing its level and its bed from day to 
day, the river in its capj'icious and uncertain sway annulled 
and undid to-day the labors of yesterday, carried on under a 
burning sun and often under the fire of the enemy. And so 
went by days upon days, precious irrecoverable days ! Per- 
liaps, let us frankly say it, the army was not so eager to act 
as it ought to have been. To advance and meet the enemy 
upon his own ground was an adventurous enterprise some- 
what foreign to an American army. In that country 
men affect the slow, circumspect, methodical kind of war 
which leaves nothing to chance. This delay, as we have 
already remarked, is part of the national character; 
it is, also, to a certain extent, imposed upon the gen- 
erals by the nature of their troops. These troops are very 
brave, but as we have attempted to show, it follows from the 
weakness of the hierarchical bond among them that one can 
never be sure that they will do exactly what they are ordered 
to do. Individual wills, as capricious as popular majorities, 
play too great a part among them. The leader has to turn his 
head to see if his men are following him. He is not certain 
that his subordinates are attached to him by the ties of disci- 
pline and duty. Hence, hesitation, and with it conditions un- 



72 THE Ainn' op tpfe potomac. 

fiivuralik' to any (hishin-^ ciiterj)rise. " It" we could but be 
attacked ami have a defensive battle," 1 often beard it said, 
" tbe day would be half won." This wish was granted. The 
cnemv was the first to attack. On the 31st of May he put an 
end to all uncertaiiitiv's and sjicculations as to the best way ot 
srettinir at him bv thi-owini!; liinisclt' b<jhllv, with all bis Ibrces, 
upon the army of the Potomac. The bloody conliict which 
rasred on that dav and the next has received the name of the 
battle of Fair Oaks. 

At the time when this attack was made, the federal army 
occupied a ])osition in the form of a letter V. The base of 
the V rests upon Bottom Bridge, where the railway crosses 
the Chickahominy. The left arm follows this railway and 
the "Williamsburg road towards Riclunond. Here lay the left 
wing, formed of four divisions, echelonned one behind the 
other, between Savage's Station and Fair Oaks, and encamped 
in the woods on either side of the railway. The right arm of 
the V follows the left bank of the river. Here lay the right 
winff. consistinr' of five divisions and the reserves. To pass 
from one end to the other of these two wings, one must have 
crossed the river at ]5ottom Bridge, and the distance M'ould 
have been something like 15 miles. As the crow flies, the 
distance, on the contrary, was small, but the Chickahominy 
flowed between the two arms of the V. It was to unite these 
two arn)s that three or lour bridges across the river were com- 
menced, one alone of which was tit for use on May 31st. It 
liad been built by General Sumner, about half way between 
Bottom Bridge and the most advanced point of the federal 
lines. It saved that day the whole federal army from destruc- 
tion. The other l;i-idges were ready, but could not be thrown 
across the strean). This fact saved the Confederate army. 

The strength of the enemy was tlirown against the left 
wing 'i'he advance of this wing lay at Fail- Oaks, a station 
on the York river niad, and at Seven Pines, a point on the 



THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 73 

Williamsburg road. Here the federals had thrown up a re- 
doubt in a clearing, where there were a few houses, and tliey 
had felled trees to widen the sweep' of their guns. The rest 
of the country was one dense wood. The evening before we 
liad a terrific stortn, w^ith torrents of rain ; the roads were 
frightful. 

Suddenly, about 1 P. M., the weather being grey and dull, 
we heard a very lively fire of musketry. The pickets and the 
advance were violently driven in ; the woods around Fair 
Oak» and Seven Pines were filled Math hostile sharpshooters. 
The troops flew to arms and fought desperately ; but the forces 
of the enemy constantly increased, and he was not checked 
by his losses. The redoubt at Seven Pines was surrounded, 
and its defenders fell valiantly. Here, among others, Colonel 
Bailey, of the artillery, met a glorious death among his guns. 
The redoubt was carried, and the Northern troops fell into 
some confusion. In vain did Generals Keyes and Naglee 
make a thousand eftorts to rally their troops ; they were 
wholly disregarded. At this moment they perceived a small 
battalion of French troops, known as the "Gardes Lafayette," 
standing in good order. The Generals rode up to it, put them- 
selves at its head, charged the enemy, and retook a battery. 
The battalion lost a fourth of its numbers in this charge, but 
like genuine Frenchmen, the same all the world over, they 
cried — "They may call us Gardes Lafourchette now, if they 
like," in allusion to an uncomplimentary nickname which had 
been bestowed on them. 

Meanwhile Heintzelman advanced to the rescue with his 
two divisions. As at AYilliamsburg, so here, Kearney came 
up at the right moment to restore the battle. Berry's brigade 
of this division, made up of Michigan regiments, and of an 
Irish battalion, advances as firm as a stone w^all, througli the 
disordered masses which are wavering upon the battle field, 
and does more, by its single example, than the strongest vq< 



74 THE ARMY OF THE TOTOMAC. 

int'orcoineuts. Nearly a mile of ^romKl liad been If.ist, fifteen 
"iins, aii<l the ili visional eamp of Casev in the advance. But 
now the troops began to stand lirni. A sort of line of battle 
was formed across the woods, perpendicularly to the railway 
and to the road, and there the repeated assaults of the enemy 
arc met. The left cannot be turned, being protected by tlio 
imj)cncti-ablo morasses of AVhite Oak Swamp; but the right 
might be surrounded. At this very moment, indeed, a strong 
confederate column is moving in that direction. If it suc- 
ceed in getting between Bottom Bridge and the federal 
troops Avho are lighting at Savage's Station, the whole left; 
wing is lost. It will have no I'ctreat left, and must be over- 
whelmed. But exactly at this moment (six o'clock p. m.), 
new actors come upon the stage. Sumner, who has at last 
passed the river with Sedgwick's division on the bridge built 
by his troops, and who, with a soldier's instinct, has marched 
straight to the cannon through the woods, suddenly appears 
npon the Hank of the hostile column which is trying to cut 
oil' Ueintzelman and Keyes. lie plants in a clearing a bat- 
tery which he has succeeded in bringing up. His guns are 
not rifled guns, the rage of the hour, and tit only to be fired 
in cool blood, and at long range in an open countrj^ ; they are 
real fighting guns, old twelve-pound howitzers carrying either 
a roinid projectile, which ricochets and rolls, or a good dose 
of grai)e. The simple and ra})id lire of tl'cse pieces makes 
terrible havoc in the hostile ranks. In vain Johnston sends 
up his best troops against this battery, the flower of South 
Carolina, including the Hampton Legion; in vain does ho 
come upon the liehl in person; notliing can shake the federal 
ranks. When night falls, it was the federals who, bayonet in 
hand, and gallant ly led by Sumner himself, charged furiously 
upon the f<ie, and di(jve him before them with fearful slaugh- 
ter, as far as l''air Oaks station. 

Night put an end to the conJlict. On either side no one 



THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 75 

knew anything more of tlie result of the fighting tJian his 
own eyes had seen. Friends and foes flinging themselves 
down in the woods lay there, among heaps of the dead and 
the dying, wherever the darkness found them. The fatigue 
of this o])stinate fight, as well as the shades of night, had 
brought about one of those tacit truces not uncommon in war. 
Evidently Johnston had imagined that by throwing his 
whole force on the four federal divisions which had crossed 
the Chickali?miny he could crush them before the rest of the 
army could come to their assistance. For the moment he had 
failed, thanks to the energetic resistance of these divisions 
and to the furious and unexpected onslaught of the troops of 
Sumner. JSTo doubt he counted upon the tremendous storm of 
the previous night to swell the Chickahominy so as to make it 
impossible to throw any bridge over the river, and to carry 
away with its flood any bridge already fixed. But the capri- 
cious stream undid his combinations, as a few hours later it 
undid those of his enemies. The eflect of the deluge of rain 
was not immediate. Twenty-four hours passed before it was 
fully felt. Was the interval employed as profitably as it 
ought to have been by the federals ? This is a question wliicli 
will always afford a matter of controversy, like so many sim- 
ilar questions which inevitably arise out of the history of 
most o^reat battles. It was not till one in the afternoon that 
the battle began. Some time had been lost under the impres- 
sion that the attack on the right bank might be a feint to 
draw over the federal troops while the main body of the con- 
federates was prepai-ing to debouch upon the left bank. An 
end was soon put to all doubts on the subject by the vehem- 
ence of the attack, and by the aeronauts who reported the 
whole confederate army moving to the scene of action. It 
was then that Sumner received the order to pass the river 
with his divisions. He executed it rapidly, marching a little 
at haphazard at the head of his column with no other guide 



76 THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 

than the cannouade, and arrived at the eritical hour and at 
the eritieal pUice. Some persons thought then, and think still 
that ifinsteadof Sumner alone, all thedivisionsof the right wing 
had heen ordered to cross the river the order could have heen 
executed. It is easy to see what must have happened, if in- 
stead of 15,000, 50,000 men had been thrown upon Johnston's 
flank. But Sumner's bridge, no doubt, would not have suf- 
ficed for the passage of such a force. At midnight the rear 
of his column was still struggling slowly to cross this rude 
structure against all the difficulties of a roadway formed of 
trunks which slip[)ed and rolled under the horses' feet, of a 
muddy morass at either end, and of a pitchy dark night ]-en- 
dered darker still by the density of the forest. But several other 
bridges were ready to be thrown across at other points. Xot 
amoinent should have been lost in fixing them, and no regard 
should have been jmid to the efforts of the enemy to ])revent 
this from being done. Johnston had paraded a brigade osten- 
tatiously as a sort of scare-crow at the points which were 
most fitting for this enterprise ; but the stake was so vast, the 
Jesuit to be sought after so inii)ortant, the occasion so unex- 
pected and so favorable for striking a decisive blow, that in 
our judgment nothing should have prevented the army from 
attempting this oj)eration at every risk. Here again it paid 
tlie penalty of that American tardiness which is more marked 
m tlie character of the army than in that of its leader. 1/ 
was not till seven in the evening that the resolution was taken 
of throwing over all the bridges and passing the whole army 
over by daybreak to the right l)ank. It was too late. Four 
liours had been lost, and the opporl unity, that moment which 
is over more fugitive in war than in any othei* occupation of 
life, had taken wing. The Hood on which Johnston had 
vaiidy couiiti'd and which had not interfered with the passage 
«tf Siuiiiu'i-. {'aiiic (HI in the night. The i-iver suddenly rose 
two feet and continued to rise very rai>idly, caiTving away 



7? 

THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 77 

the new bridges, lifting and sweeping away the trees which 
formed the floor of Sumner's bridge, and covering the valley 
with its unruly waters. Nothing could cross over. With the 
flrst light of day the battle began again fiercely on tlie left 
bank. The enemy came on in masses without order or 
method, and fell upon the federals, who feeling their inferior- 
ity in numbers, and having no hope of succor, attempted to 
do nothing more than to hold their own. The fight raged on 
either side with savage energy. There was no shouting or 
noise. When either party was too hard pressed it took to the 
bayonet. The artillery from beyond the clearing sent its 
shells over the combatants. Ah ! I wish that all tliose who 
careless of the past and urged on by I know not what selfish 
calculations, have lavished their encouragements upon this 
fatal slaveholders' rebellion, could have looked in person upon 
this fratricidal strife. I could have asked that as a just punish- 
ment they should be condemned to gaze upon that fearful 
battle-field where the dead and the dying were piled up by 
thousands. I could have wished them to see the thousand 
ambulances hastily assembled around those scattered houses. 
What varieties of misery and of anguish ! There was some- 
thing particularly horrible in tlie ambulances. The houses 
were too few to contain even a small minority of the wounded, 
and they had necessarily been heaped up around the field ; 
but although they uttered no complaints and bore their fate 
with the most stoical courage, their exposure under the noon- 
day sun of a burning June soon became intolerable ; and then 
they were to be seen, gathering up what little strength was 
left to them, crawling about in search of a little shade. I 
shall never forget a rose-bush in full bloom, the perfumed 
flowers of which I was admiring while I talked witli a friend, 
when he pointed out to me under the foliage one of these poor 
creatures who had just drawn his last breath. We looked at 
one another in silence, our hearts filled with the most painful 



78 THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 

emotions. Sad scenes, I'loni wliicli the pen of the M'riter, like 
the eve of the spectator, hastens to turn away ! 

Towanls noon the tiring o-radiially shickened and ceased. 
The enemy was retreating, but the federals were in no condi- 
tion to pursue him. We did not then know how severe a loss 
the confederates had suffered, in the person of their leader, 
Jolinston, grievously wounded. It was mainly to his absence 
tliat we must attribute the disconnected character of the at- 
tack made upon the federals in the morning. When the firing 
ceased at noon, the confederates, we were told, (for amid those 
immense forests we heard nothing and must divine every 
thing,) were in a state of inextricable confusion. What might 
not have happened, if at this moment the 35,000 fresh troops 
on the other bank of the Chickahominy could have appeared 
upon the flank of this disordered army, after passing the 
bridges in safety ! 

Such is the story of this singular battle, which, complicated 
as it was b}" incidents beyond human control, may yet, I think, 
be taken as a fair type of American battles.* The conflict 
liad l)eon sanguinary, since the Northern army had lost 5,000, 
and the Southern at least 8,000 men. But the results to either 
party wei-e negative. The confederates, mucli superior in 
numljers, had made a vigorous attack, had driven back their 
adversaries about a mile, had captured several cannon and 
had stopped there, satisfied with earning thus the right to sing 
the song of victory. 

The federals had had the defensive battle which they desired, 
had repulsed the enemy, taken a General and many prisoners; 
l)ut arrested by natural obstacles which perhaps were not 
wliolly insuniKiuiitable, they had gained nothing by their suc- 
cess. 



• I cnnnol ri-friiiii from mentioning liore a most characteristic incident: newspaper 
vfii<l*H wer.; crying the latest New York ijajjcrs on the battlelicld during the 
baMie, and they found buyers. 



7S 

THE ARMY OP THE POTOMAC. 79 

In point of fact, botli sides had failed for want of organiza- 
tion, for want of hierarchy, for the want of the bond which 
hierarchy cr^^ates between the soul of the G-eneral and the 
great body called an army, that powerful bond which suffers 
a Commander to demand and to obtain from the blind confi- 
dence of his troops, those extraordinary efforts by which bat- 
tles are won. Nevertheless, although the losses of the enemy 
were the larger, the check which the federals had received 
was especially disastrous to them. They had missed an 
unique opportunity of striking a decisive blow. 

These opportunities never returned ; and moreover, in the 
then circumstances of the federals, time was working against 
them. 

V. 

Clje Stbctt gags' §attks. 

The day after this battle, McClellan recovered, without a 
blow, the stations of Fair Oaks and Seven Pines, so that the 
armies were once more in the same positions as before. For 
nearly a month they looked each other in the face, in a state 
of inaction which yet was not repose. On the contrary, this 
month, with its overwhelming alternations of heat and rain, 
with the immense labors imposed upon the soldiers, with its 
never-ending alarms and partial combats, was a dreary and 
a trying season. 

The federal army neither wished to offer, nor to invite an- 
other such battle as that of Fair Oaks till its bridges should be 
built, and its two wings put into communication with each 
other. Diluvian rains were in the way of the result. More- 
over, we had profited by past experience, and we wished to 
give these bridges, together with a monumental solidity, an 
extent of space which should traverse not only the river, but 
the whole valley. If we did this, we should have nothing 



so THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 

iiioiv to tVai- \h>m iiiiindatioiis, but to do this required much 
tiiiu' and numy elforts. ^Vheu it was completed, the left wing 
remained exposed to an attack from the whole confederate 
force ; so we hastened to entrench ourselves along our whole 
line. This was a tremendous piece of work. As in all other 
places, redoubts and embankments had to be raised, rifle-pits 
had to be dug, and all this under a broiling sun. We had 
furthermore to cut down the trees on the site selected, and for 
several hundred yards in advance. In some places no earth- 
works were erected, but it was thought sufMcient to cut down the 
forest into the contour of a regular fortification. The thickest 
part of the woods left standing and salient in the midst of a 
vast abattis, played the part of a bastion. The artillery and 
the sharpshooters, placed in this wood, flanked with their fire 
the hedges which represented the curtains. 

The defenders of these new-fashioned works, it is true, had 
no other protection against the hostile fire tlian the foliage, 
through which it was impossible to draw a direct aim upon 
them. 

All these labors were executed with admirable energy and 
intelligence. In ihis asi)ect the American soldier has no 
j-ival ; ]>atient of fatigue, rich in resources, he is an excellent 
digger and ditcher, an excellent woodman, a good carpenter, 
and even something of a civil engineer. Often in the course 
of the campaign we came upon a flour mill or a saw mill, 
turned soiin;tiiiies by a water wheel, sometimes by an engine, 
which the enemy as he retired had thrown out of order. You 
were sure to find immediately in the first regiment that came 
up men who could rei)air, refit, and set them going again for 
tlie service of the army. But nothing was so remarkable as 
to see a detail fall to wui-k at making an abattis in the woods. 
It is impossible to give an idea of tiie celerity with which 
work of tliis kind was done. I remember to liave seen a 
grovo a hundred acres in extent, of ancestral oaks and other 



7^ 

THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 81 

Iiard wood trees cut down in a single day by a single battalion. 
Nevertheless, all this work was not done without much fatigue 
both moral and material, as the natural consequence of in- 
cessant toil under an incessant fire. 

In these vast and pathless woods, where you run a constant 
risk of being surprised, it is impossible to throw out one's ad- 
vance very far. So we form what in America is called a 
"picket line," an uninterrupted line of sentinels supported by 
strong reserves, which never move far from the corps to which 
they belong. The two armies were now so near together, and 
80 determined to cede no inch of ground that their pickets were 
stationed within hailing distance of one another. Generally 
they got along very amicably together, and contented them- 
selves with a reciprocal watchfulness. Sometimes friendly 
communications took place between them — they trafficked in 
various trifles, and exchanged the Kichmond newspapers for 
the New York Herald. It even happened one day that some 
federal officers were invited by their confederate comrades to 
a ball in Richmond, on condition that they would sufler their 
eyes to be bandaged in going and returning. But a single 
shot would disturb these good relations — the firing would last 
a greater part of an hour, and a hundred men perhaps be 
killed or wounded before they became quiet again. 

At other times the troops were surprised in their tents by a 
shower of shells, coming nobody knew where from, over the 
heads of the pickets. This was a disagreeable reveillee when 
it happened at night. If it took place in the daytime the men 
would clamber up into some high tree to spy out the spot 
from which the firing came. This would be betrayed by the 
smoke, and sometimes a confederate soldier would be seen 
perched in some towering tree himself directing the fire of the 
artillerymen. Then the federals would reply, and make great 
eiforts to " bring down" the aerial gunner. These isolated an- 
noyances, whether of " picket firing" or "long-range shelling" 
G 



82 THE ARMY OP TTIE POTOMAC. 

tronliled nobodv but the troops immediately exposed. Tliey 
were liappenino; at every liour of the day, and tliere is noth- 
ing which may not become a habit. But sometimes the mus- 
ketry and the cannon came booming together witli a vivacity 
■svhich no one could mistake, and then every one sprang to 
arms, and the staifgot into the saddle. The enemy was mak- 
ing a demonstration in force, and we were replying. Would 
a battle grow out of it ? 

This constant uncertainty was singularly exhausting. Eut 
the battle never came. The Southern generals were no more 
anxious than the ^Northern to bring on prematurely a general 
engagement. They had their plans, and were leaving them to 
ripen. Every day brought them new reinforcements, and they 
cxi)ected still more. The whole force of the rebellion must 
soon be gathered in upon Ilichmond. Meanwhile, disease 
ravaged the exhausted soldiers of the federal army. The 
extreme heat combined with the marshy exhalations generated 
fevers which took upon them almost instantly a typhoid char- 
acter. Certain divisions which had already been weakened in 
action had two thousand sick u])<)n their list. A system of 
teui|>()rury and irregular leaves of absence liad grown up in 
the army, which also conspired to reduce its effective strength. 
Many colonels arrogated to themselves the right of granting 
leaves of absence for a few days to soldiers who went and 
were seen no iiiDrc. 

It is right, however, to say that at this critical time General 
McClellan received some small reinforcements. One of his 
old divi>^ions, tliat of McCall, was restored to him. Moreover, 
Foitre^s ]\Ioni-ue having been at last ]>ut under his orders, he 
had drawn llieiice sonui 5 or 6,000 men. This was something, 
but it was not enough ; it was far from being enough to fill 
up the gaps nuide in the ranks, which widened daily. 

Tlicsc days of inaction had a further disadvantage, that 
iJiev enou -aged ImstiU' partisans to dashing enterprises. The 



7S 

THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 83 

feat undertaken by the confederate Colonel Lee was one of 
the most singular episodes of the war. At the head of 1,500 
liorsemen he attacked some squadrons which were patrol- 
ing at Hanover Court House, dispersed them and made a suc- 
cessful inroad upon the communications of the army. His 
project was to cut off the York river railway, under cover oi. 
the night; but it did not succeed. We, however, had the sin- 
gular exhibition of a combat between cavalry and a railway 
train ; the train literally charging both the hostile cavalry 
and the obstructions placed on the track, escaped with the loss 
of a few men killed and wounded by the fire of the enemy. 
But if Colonel Lee failed to destroy the railway, he made a 
brilliant 7'aszia upon the army stores, and escaped without 
damage to himself. The real miscliief done was that attempts 
of this sort might be constantly renewed, and that we had 
not troops enough to oppose them everywhere at once. 

Although under all these trials the morale of the army con- 
tinued to be excellent,* it was impossible not to see that the 
expedition was in a critical situation, which was daily grow- 
ing worse. Having lost fully one-third of its numbers during 
the campaign, decimated by disease and threatened in the 
rear, the army found itself in the heart of the insurgent terri- 
tory, menaced by forces twice or thrice more numerous than 
itself. It was impossible to think of remaining idle in front 
of the enemy as had been done during the winter at "Washing- 
ton and more recently at Corinth. This General McClellan 
felt : and as soon as the brido;es were fixed he determined to 



* I hardly know whether I ought to mention among other causes which might hare 
affected this morale the disagreeable spectacle of the gigantic posters which an em- 
balmer exhibited in the midst of the camp, and in which this tradesman, speculating 
at once upon the losses of the army and on the domestic affections of their friends, 
promised to embalm the slain and send them home at a reasonable rate. This enter- 
prising rival of Gannal, by the way, saved the life of a colonel, who having bee« 
thrown into a prolonged swoon by the explosion of a shell, was supposed to be dead, 
and having been committed to the embalmer, recovered his consciousness during 
the operation. 



84 THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 

act. A jilan hud l)een tlioiight of by liiin ; it was to trans- 
jioi't the whole army seventeen miles from its position at that 
linio, to abandon tlie line of communications on the York 
river, and to seek, with the assistance of the navy, a new base 
on the James river. If tliis movement could be successfully 
and secretly made, the chances of a great battle fought on the 
river bank with the cooperation of the gunboats covering one 
flank of the army, would be much more favorable to the fed 
erals ; but the movement had dangers of its own, and it was 
not eas}^ of accomplishment in the face of the enemy ; not to 
jnention the undcsirableness of an apparent retreat. 

The plan then was renounced, or at least adjourned. With 
American tenacity, a quality which is just as remarkable 
in the people as their habit of delay, and perhaps balances 
that habit, it was settled that the army should not fall back, ■ 
unless it was absolutely driven so to do. The General wished 
to carry out the operations already commenced ; but he nev- 
ertheless took the wise precaution of sending to City Point 
oil the river James, vessels loaded with ammunition, provi- 
sions, and supplies of all sorts. This done, General McClellan 
devoted himself to brino-ino- on a f^jeneral action on the frround 
lying between himself and Richmond, a ground which he had 
carefully studied in numerous reconnoissances. These recon- 
noissances had given rise to a number of adventures. On one 
occasion the General had climbed with several of his otticers, 
to the top of a high tree, and there, every man on his branch 
witli spy-glass in hand, they had lield a sort of council of war. 
This took place within a hundred paces of the hostile pickets, 
whom no attempt at observations could escape. We dreaded 
to hear the crack of the rifles of the famous Southern squirrel- 
Bhooters; but they were magnanimous, and the reconnoissance 
ended without a mishap. On another occasion, the stafl" of a 
confederate commander appeared simultaneously with our 
own ui'Mii the banks of the Chickahominy. At once the lios- 



7C 

THE ARMY OP THE POTOMAC. 85 

fcile gentlemen ordered up one of their bands, which played a 
popular air; but it was hardly ended before the musicians 
gave w^ay to a battery, which, coming up at full gallop, 
opened a terrible fire, to which we soon responded. These 
examinations convinced us that the enemy was not idle, and 
that he had thrown up works, armed with heavy guns, pre- 
cisely Vv'here we did not wish to see them. At last, after 
many experin^ents, the battle began. On the 25th of June, 
Hooker received his orders to advance a mile, to a large clear- 
ing on the direct road to Richmond. It was calculated that this 
movement would be followed by a general resistance on the 
part of the confederates, which would renew the battle of 
Fair Oaks, with the important difference that our bridges 
being all solidly established, we could command the assistance 
of the whole army. 

If the challenge were not accepted, then we should have 
made one step forward ; we should make another next day, 
and so, by degrees, we should enter Richmond. Moreover, 
we trusted to our star for the rest. Hooker, mounted on a 
Vv^hite horee, v/liich made him conspicuous in the woods to all 
of us and to the enemy, advanced gallantly. The ground he 
was to conquer was taken, lost, retaken and final I}'' held by 
him, with a loss of from 400 to 500 nien. His two brave 
brigadiers, Groves and Sickles, gave him the most energetic 
assistance; but during the conflict, serious news had reached 
us. 

Deserters, runav/ay negroes, the Washington telegraph it- 
self, generally so sober in its information, agreed in this news: 
numerous reinforcements had reached Richmond from the 
South. Beauregard, set free by the cessation of operations in 
the Southwest, had brought the aid of his capacity and of his 
prestige to the pro-slavery cause. Jackson, leaving the eighty 
thousand defenders of Washington breathless from their idle 
chase after him, had completed the concentraticn of the whole 



86 THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 

Soutlicni army. Ilis advance was already at Hanover Court 
House, and his corps, increased by Whiting's division, waa 
estimated at 30,000 men. 

The federal attack upon Ilichmond could no longer bo 
prosecuted ; the presence of Jackson at Hanover Court House 
proved that he intended to attack our communications, and 
cut them ofl' by seizing the York river railway. The manoeu- 
vre was soon put beyond a doubt, A considerable body of 
*roops were seen to leave Richmond, move in the direction of 
Jackson, and execute that movement to turn us, the danger 
of which we have already pointed out. Profiting by his nu- 
merical superiority, the enemy offered us battle on both sides 
of the river at once. 

xill the chances of success were in his favor. Let the reader 
recall the lio-ure Y which we used in describino- the battle of 
Fair Oaks. The situation of the army of McClellan is the 
same now as then, excepting that the two arms of the Y are 
now connected by bridges, which offer all necessary facilities 
fur transporting the different corps rapidly from one bank of 
the river to the other. The federal main body, composed of 
eight divisions, ]>ut considerably reduced in effective strength, 
is upon the left arm of the Y — the right bank, that is, of the 
Chickahominy, and occupies the entrenchments which front 
Kichmond. Before these troops lies the mass of the hostile 
army, also established in entrenched positions. Upon the 
rigiit arm of the Y, or the left bank of the river, lies the fede- 
ral General Fitz John Porter, with two divisions and the regu- 
lar reserves. Against him it was that Jackson marched with 
the corps of General Hill from rcichmond, the whole being 
under the orders of General Lee, who had. succeeded Johnston 
in tlie chief command. 

Substantially, then, the Army of the Potomac was about to 
engage two armies each equal in force to itself. Battles have 
bometiincs been won in such circumstances. But no one should 



77 



THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 8T 

count upon such favors from fortune. The best thing to be 
done was to get well out of so critical a position. Tliere was 
nothing for it but to retreat promptly ; unluckil}^, however, 
this was not to be so easily done. "We had a choice of dangers. 
To concentrate on the left bank of the Chickahominy was to 
abandon the enterprise against liichmond, and to risk a dis- 
astrous retreat upon White House and Yorktown, with the 
whole confederate army at our heels, in a country where we 
could hope for no support. There was no good to be expected 
from this ])lan. To pass to the right bank was to risk the ene- 
in_y's cutting our communications with White House, and seiz- 
ing the railway which brought our supplies. We should then 
be forced to open new communications with the James river, 
and to move in that direction en tnasse and with no delay. 
This would be a retreat, but for a few miles only, and if we 
were but moderately reinforced, with the support of the navy, 
we could reassume the offensive either against Riclunond 
itself, on the right bank of the river, or against Petersburg on 
the left, the fall of that place involving the fall of Richmond 
McClellan chose the latter course. 

As we have said, he had long considered it as one of the 
necessities of his position, and had even taken some contingent 
steps in regard to it, the wisdom of which was about to be 
signally vindicated ; but there was a vast diiference between 
making this retreat at one's own time and by a free, spontane- 
ous movement, and making it hastily under the threatening 
pressure of two hostile armies. But there was no time for de- 
liberation. The resolution taken upon the spur of the moment 
must be carried at once into effect. The distance from Fair 
Oaks to the James river was not great ; it was bnt seventeen 
miles. But the stores and baggage had to be moved upon a 
single road, exposed in front to the enemy, who by several 
different roads radiating from Richmond could throw a con- 
siderable force upon several different points at once. The 



88 THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 

speed with wliicli the operation was conducted npset hie 
calcuhitions : lie ]tr(>l);il)ly supposed tliat we should feel tlie 
•ground lietbre wc acted, and perhaps he thouu'Iit tliat McClel- 
lan would lind it hard to make up his mind to abandon his 
lines at White House. lie acted at least as if this were his 
view. The troojis of General Hill, mentioned above, having 
crossed the Chiekahoniiny at Meadow Bridge on the 26th, the 
dav after the affair Avith Hooker, in the afternoon attacked 
the troops of McCall, the advance of Porter on the left bank. 
This first conflict M'as very severe ; but McCall occupied a strong 
position at Beaver Dam, a sort of ravine bordered with beau- 
tiful catalpa trees, then in flower. There he had made abattis 
and thrown up some earth so that he could not be overcome, 
notwithstandin<»: the leno;tli of the fight which lasted until 
nightfall. This vigorous resistance compelled the enemy to 
throw numerous reinforcements across the river. This was 
exactly Avhat General McClellan desired. His mtention was 
to fix the attention of the enemy here while on the right bank 
he prepared his movement to the James river. 

The night was spent in passing over to this bank the whole 
of Porter's baggage and uniting it witli the long train which 
was to set out in the evening of the 27tli. The orders were 
given to re-embark or destroy all the stores and magazines 
along the railway to "White House and to evacuate that depot. 
General Stoneman with a flying column was charged with the 
execution of this order. He was to delay the advance of the 
enemy and fall back when he had done his duty upon York- 
town. All this was carried out exactly. At daybreak on the 
27tli, McCall was ordered to fall back on the bridges thrown 
across thr Cliii-kalioniiiiy ;it (iaines's Mill, l-'ollowcd up rap- 
idly, as he had expected to be, he joined the other troops of 
Porter's corps, the division of Morell and the regulars eom- 
tnaiided by (General f^ykes. Porter's duty, demanding as 
much Rclf-posecssion as vigor, was to make a stand in front of 



THE ARMY OP THE POTOMAC. 89 

tlie Dridges in order to give the array time to accomplish its 
general movement. He was not to cross the bridges till the 
evening of the 27tli, and was then to destroy them. His three 
divisions were attacked early in the day. The corps of Jack- 
son coming in from Hanover Court House, took part in the 
action. The battle was fought in a rolling country, extensively 
wooded, but upon certain points open and cleared. The strug- 
gle was arduous ; the federals resisted with success ; there 
w^as even one moment at which Porter mio-ht have thought 
himself victorious. This would have been a great advantage, 
and might have j^rofoundly modified the position. Accord- 
ingly, during this moment of hope, McClellan hastened to throw 
upon the left bank all the troops not absolutely necessary to 
guard the lines in front of Richmond. One division, that of 
Slocum, crossed the bridges before four o'clock and joined in 
the action. Another, Kichardson's, reached the scene only at 
nio;htfall. At the moment when these reinforcements be^'an 
to take part in the fight, the scene had an imposing character of 
grandeur. We had 35,000 men engaged, a part in the woods, 
a part in the plain, forming a line a mile and a half long. A 
numerous artillery thundered upon every side. In the valley 
of the Chickahominy the lancers with floating pennons were 
stationed as a reserve ; and this whole animated picture of the 
battle was set in a picturesque landscape illuminated by the 
last rays of the sun going down below a horizon as crimson as 
blood. Suddenly the volleys became extraordinarily intense. 
The reserves, which had till now been lying in the hollows, 
were called up, excited by shouts, and sent into the woods. 
Tlie musketry becomes more and more violent, and rolls away 
toward the left. There can no longer be any doubt that the 
enemy is making a final effort on that side. The reserves are 
all engaged, there is not a disposable man left. It is six 
o'clock, the daylight is fast disappearing ; if the federal army 
can ho)d out an hour longer the battle is won, for at every 



90 THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 

other point the enemy has been repulsed, and Jaekso.i, Hill, 
Lee, and Longstrect will have urged up their troops in vain. 
For laek of inl'antrj, Porter has put three batteries en •potenct 
\)\\ his extreme left to support the troops who are there sus- 
taining an unequal light ; but these troops have been in action 
since early morning, they are worn out, and have lired almost 
their last cartridge. Xow in their turn come up the confed- 
erate reserves ; they deploy regularly into line against the fed- 
eral left which gives way, breaks and disbands. The disorder 
grows from point to point till it reaches the centre of the fed- 
eral lines. There is no panic ; the men do not lly in the wild 
excitement of fear ; but deaf to every appeal, they marcli oil 
deliberately, their muskets at the shoulder, like people who 
have had enough of it, and do not believe success possible. In 
vain do the generals, the officers of the staff, among them the 
Count of Paris and the Duke of Cliartres, ride sword in hand 
into the melee to stop their disorderly movement; the battle 
of Gaines's Mill is lost. There is nothing left but to prevent 
a rout. The enemy, indeed, was advancing on the plain still 
in the same order, his infantry deployed by regiments ai 
ecJcelon^ and every minute he was closing in upon the confused 
masses of the federals. Such is the fury of the cannonade and 
the musketry lire that the cloud of dust struck up from the 
ground floats steadily over the battle. Then came the order 
for the cavalry to charge. I happened at this moment to bo 
near its position. I saw the troopers draw their swords with 
the sudden and electrical impulse of determination and devo- 
tion. As they got into motion, I asked a young officer the 
name nf his regiment. '' The Fifth cavalry," he replied, bran- 
dishing his sabre with a soldier's [)ride in his regiment. Un- 
tortunate young man! I saw the same regiment next day^ 
l-rom the charge of that evening but two oSicers had return- 
ed, lie was not one of them. 
The charge failed against the dense battalions of the enemy, 



THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 91 

and the broken regiments galloping through the artillery and 
the flying infantry in the clouds of dust only increased the 
general disorder. The artillery horses were killed, and I saw, 
with painful emotion, the men working with the courage of 
desperation at guns which could no longer be removed. They 
dropped one after another. Two alone were left at last, 
and they continued to load and fire almost at point blank 
range upon the enemy. Then the deepening twilight hid the 
scene. All these guns were lost. 

General Buttertield had made in vain the most superhuman 
efibrts to save them. On foot, his horse having been shot, 
struck in the hat by the fragment of a shell, and his sabre hit 
by a ball, surrounded by his aids-de-camp, of whom several 
fell at his side, he had tried to rally tlie infantry around a flag 
planted in the ground. He succeeded, but only for a few mo- 
ments; the precipitate rush of the retreat carried everything 
away. Happily, night came on, and after losing a mile of ground, 
the army reached the fresh brigades of Meagher and French, 
which were formed in good order. These brigades sent up a 
vigorous hurrah, and a few guns put anew in battery opened 
their fire npon the enemy, who paused at last, checked by this 
final and determined resistance. 

As the last guns of this action were firing, we heard a lively 
rattle of musketry from the direction of Fair Oaks, on the 
other side of the river. It came from the confederates who 
were attacking the federal works ; but the attack, which was 
probably only a demonstration, was vigorously repelled. 

The day had been severe. In the main battle, that of 
Gaines's Mill, 35,000 federals had failed to defeat 60,000 con- 
federates, but they had held them in chec!:. More could noi 
have been expected. 

During the night the federals repassed the bridges of the 
Chickahominy in perfect order, destroying them after they 
had passed. They left behind them the field of battle, covered 



92 THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 

with the dead (tor in this lierce coiiilict the losses on both sidea 
had been considerable) a i^reat inunber of wonnded, too much 
hurt to be moved, a dozen guns, and a few prisoners, a'aiong 
Avhom was General Reynolds. The corps of Kejes, which 
was in the advance, fell back also towards James river, and 
took possession of the passage of a large morass, AVhite Oak 
Swamp, which is traversed by the road the army -was to take as 
well as by the principal lines of communication which could be 
used by the enemy to harass us. 

The L'Sth and 29th of June were passed in sending for- 
ward the train of live thousand wagons, the siege train, a 
herd of twenty-five hundred oxen, and other impediraenia. 
The reader may judge what a piece of work this was, when 
he reflects that it was all to be done upon a single narrow 
road. The first day we were undisturbed ; the enemy was ex- 
hausted by the previous day's battle ; he seemed, moreover, 
astonished and disconcerted, and did not yet fullj^ understand 
the object of the federal army. The whole of this army was 
united on the right bank of the Cliickahominy, whilst the bulk 
of the confedei'ate forces was U])(>n tlie left bank, and the 
bridfjes were down. To recrc)ss the river, thev Avoidd be 
forced either to build new bridges or to fall back some dis- 
tance to the Mechanicsville bridge ; either of which ()]Kn-a 
tions involved time. Xow, time was everything, and the re- 
treating army \)\\t it to good use. It was not until the 29tli 
that the southern columns came in sight of the federal rear- 
guard. A battle at once began, at Savage's Station, but tlie 
enemy were vigorously received, and at"ter repulsing tlicm the 
federals waitcil till nightt'all before recommencing llicir inarch. 
The last duty done ly the telegraph the day before was to in- 
form us that the confederates were at Widte House. Thisi 
]lo^1 they had found abandoned. The morning of the 29th 
Iiad brcn spent by us in destroying all that could not be car- 
ri'j<l away fi-oni the camps. A complete railway train, loco- 



THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 93 

motive, tender, and cars, which had been left on the rails was 
Bent headlong over the broken bridge into the river. iSTothing 
was left for the foe but three siege guns which could not be 
moved, and which we neglected to bury. These were the 
only siege guns he captured, although the story has been every- 
where repeated that he took the whole federal siege train with 
the exception of these three pieces. The whole of that train 
reached the James river in safety. Our great misfortune was, 
that we were obliged to abandon so many of our wounded, not 
only at Gaines's Mill and at Savage's Station, but along the 
whole line of retreat. This misfortune was inevitable. It 
was only by ceaseless fighting that we could protect our 
retreat, and the transportation of so many wounded men 
would have required conveniences which we did not possess. 

General McClellan, during the 29th, and the morning of 
the 30th, remained near White Oak Swamp, urging on the 
passage of his enormous train. The heat was overwhelming. 
His aids-de-camp, continually galloping from the rear-guard 
to the advance, were utterly exhausted. So long as this huge 
train divided the different parts of the army we were in great 
danger. But nothing disturbed the serene self-possession of 
the General-in-Chief. On the 29th, he had stopped, I remem- 
ber, to rest in the verandah of a house by the way side, when 
the mistress of the establishment came to complain to him that 
the soldiers w^ere eating her cherries. The General rose with 
a smile, went himself and put a stop to the pillage. But he 
could not prevent the shells, next day, from setting fire to the 
house of his pretty hostess. 

At daybreak on the 30th McClellan had the satisfaction of 
seeing all his troops and all his trains in safety beyond White 
Oak Swamp which was to oppose a new barrier to the pur- 
suit of the enemy. By the evening of the next day Generals 
Keyes and Porter were in communication with the gunboats 
on the James. The trains had moved upon roads pointed out 



91 THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 

by tlie negro guides. Tlie heads of the cuhunns had met 
jKttliiiig but small detaclniieuts of cavalrv, which thej had 
easily dispersed. The hardest part of the work was done, but 
it was to be supposed that the enemy would renew his at- 
tempt to disturb the retreat. So the General took his meas- 
ures in time. He left Sumner and Franklin to act as the 
rear-guard, and hold the passage of White Oak Swamp ; and 
put lleintzelman with the divisions of Hooker, Kearney, 
Sedgwick and McCall, across the point of intersection of the 
roads leading from Richmond. They protected tlie trains 
and reached the James river at the exact moment when the 
transports with provision and ammunition, and the hospital 
ships which with wise foresight General McClellan had 
ordered up ten days before, arrived from Fortress Monroe, 

Meanwhile, as had been expected, Franklin and Sumner 
were sharply attacked in White Oak Swamp, to which point 
the confederate Generals had brought a large force of artillery. 
Tliey fell back step by step. Later in the day lleintzelman 
also was attacked at the Cross-roads. Here, the battle raged 
with varying fortune, in the woods. The division of McCall 
suffered severely, and its commander was made prisoner ; but 
Hooker and Kearney, coming to his help repulsed the assail- 
ants with great loss. They did not however, succeed in res- 
cuing tlie General, who was sent into Richmond to join 
Reynolds. 

Finally, a third attack ujion the corps of Fitz-Jolm Porter 
failed utterly under the combined fire of the field artillery, 
and the gunboats. Porter occupied a superb position at a 
place calle(l 'i'lirkey liend, by some persons, and Malvern 
Hill by others. This position was a lofty open plateau 
sloping gradually down to the roads by which the enemy 
must debouch. The left rested upon the river, where lay the 
Galena, tlic Monitor, and the flotilla of gunboats. The 
federal army then had nothing to fear from this side, and had 



J/ 

THE ARMY OP THE POTOMAC. 95 

eonsequeutl y only one flank to protect, -wliicli was easily done 
with abattis and field works. On the evening of the 30th all 
the divisions of the army were united in this strong position, 
and here the whole train including the siege guns was shel- 
tered. The army was in communication with its transports 
and supplies. The grand and daring movement by which it 
had escaped a serious danger and changed an untenable base 
of operations for one more safe and sure, had been accom- 
plished ; but after so prolonged an effort the troops were worn 
out ; for five days they had been incessantly marching and 
fighting. The heat had added to their excessive fatigue; 
many men had been sun struck ; others quitted the ranks and 
fell into the lamentable procession of sick and wounded 
which followed the army as well as it could, and as fast as it 
could. Doubtless during this difiicult retreat, there had been 
moments of confusion and disorder, but of what army in like 
circumstances would not this have been true ? This one fact 
remained unassailable ; that attacked in the midst of a diffi- 
cult and hostile country by twice its own force, the Army of 
the Potomac had succeeded in gaining a position in which it 
was out of danger, and from which, had it been properly re- 
inforced, had the concentration of the enemy's forces been 
met by a like concentration, it might have rapidly resumed 
the offensive. 

As we have said, each of its necessarily scattered sections 
had for five days been called upon to resist the most fnrious 
assaults and had done so with vigor. ]^ow that it was as- 
sembled as a whole upon Malvern Hill the confederate army 
also reunited might possibly make a last effort against it. So 
in the night of the 30th of June and 1st of July McClellan 
prepared himself for this eventuality. He put his whole artil- 
lery, at least three hundred guns, into battery along the heights 
arranging them in such wise that their fire should not inter- 
fere with the defence by the infantry of the sort of glacis "ip 



> 

96 THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 

which tlie enemy WduUl be oljli>^ed to advance to the attack. 
Tlie artilleiy lire was to be reinforced by the lOO-pounders 
of the gunboats which were ordered to flank the position. It 
was mere madness to rush upon such obstacles ; but tlie confed- 
erates alk'niptcd ir. Again and again during the day of the 
1st of July they \indertouk to cany Malvern Hill, but without 
the slightest chance of success. The whole day for them was 
an idle butchery. Their loss was very heavy ; that of the 
federals insignificant. This success was due to two causes. 
First, to the fortunate foresight of the General, who, in spite of 
numerous natural obstacles to the passage of artillery, had 
spared nothing to bring his on, and next to the firmness of his 
troops, j\[en do not make such a campaign, and go through 
such ex})erience as they had endured, without coming out 
more or less formed to war. If their primitive organization 
had been better, the survivors of this rude campaign, I do not 
fear to assert, might be regarded as the equals of the best 
soldiers in the world. 

On the evening after this battle the exhausted enemy re- 
tired to appear no more, and the army of the Potomac took 
up a jiosition and sought rest at Harrison's Bar, a spot chosen 
by the engineers and the navy as the most favorable for de- 
fence and for receiving supplies. The campaign against Itich- 
mond had ended, without success, but not Avithout honor. 
Tiie honor of the army was safe ; but those wlio had looked 
to success for the early restoration of the Union under an im- 
pulse of generous and patriotic conciliation saw their hopes 
unhappily fade away. 



THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 9'*' 

VT. 

^olilrcul llcflcdrcrns. 

Here I pause. My object in this narrative has been to 
describe the character of an American army, to make my 
readers acquainted with the peculiarities of war in countries 
BO different from our own, and with tlie varied difficulties, 
against which a general has there to contend. I have related 
with equal candor my good and my bad impressions. The 
good which I have seen there has often moved me to admira- 
tion : the evil has never weakened the sentiments of deep 
sympathy which I feel for the American people. I have also 
tried to lay my linger upon the sad concatenation of blunders 
and accidents w^hicli has brought about the failure of the 
gi'eat attempt made to re-establish the Union. I shall not 
venture to question the future upon the consequences of this 
failure. They will come to light only too soon. It would be 
idle and ridiculous to predict to-day the final destiny of the 
combatants, to foretell which of the two will display the great- 
est tenacity, will prove itself, if I may be pardoned the phrase, 
to have the better wind. 

One thing is certain ; the failure of McClellan's campaign 
against llichmond is destined to be followed by the effusion 
of seas of blood : it prolongs a strife, the fatal effects of which 
are not felt in America alone; it adjourns the most desirable 
solution of the crisis, the return of the States to the old Union. 
I say the old Union designedly, because I am one of those 
who think that if the North were beaten, decidedly beaten, 
that if the right of the minority to resist by arms the decisions 
of universal suffrage were victoriously established, the Union 
might still perhaps be reestablished. But it would then be 
reestablished by the conspicuous triumph of Slavery. 
7 



98 THE ARMY OP THE POTOMAC. 

If tlic t'oderal bond M-erc to he finally broken between the 
Nortli and the South, it would soon be broken, also, bo- 
hveen the States which form the Northern Union Each one 
of them would then consider only its own interests, while the 
South would be more and more closely united by the ])Ower- 
ful bond of Slavery. It would have shown how strong it is; 
would liave acquired great prestige, and would exercise that 
power of attraction wliich always goes with success and with 
power. 

Yictorious, it W(^uld extend its grasp not only over the now 
contested States of Missouri, Kentucky, and Virginia; but 
over Marylaiul also. Baltimore would become the depot of 
all foreign commerce. The iron of England would then en- 
ter the heart of Pennsylvania. Who can say that this State, 
the population of wliich perhaps dislikes the negro at liberty 
as much as it does the negro in slavery, would not decide to 
make its peace with the powerful confederacy in return for 
the commercial |)r()tection which the confederacy would be 
oidy too glad to oifer it? For the Southern States favor free 
ti'ade oidy because it suits tlieir immediate purpose. Once 
masters of the situation, they would become genuine Ameri- 
cans again. New York would follow the example of Pennsyl- 
vania. Commerce does not suit the people of the South. They 
need some one to look after their business. In all ])robability 
a similar movement woiiM ali'ect the AVestern States, all whose 
outlets would be in the hands of the confederates. The States 
of New England alone, Avherc puntanism holds its sway, and 
slavery is sincerely hated, would remain isolated, and exist 
upon the i)ro(liiets of tlu'ir agriculture, and the resources call- 
ed into lieing by the enterprise of their active and numerous 
Muiritimc jjopulaiion. With the exception of six States then, 
and pi-obably of ('alifoi-nia also, which, separated from the rest 
of tin; world, ha- allogcther exceptional interests of her own, 
the old I'liion would be i-econstrncted. But the ideas of tlio 



fv3 

THE AKMY OF THE POTOMAC. 99 

Soutii would be in the ascendant. The glorification and exten- 
sion of slavery would be the common watchword. Founded by 
force of arms, the confederation would be an essentially mili- 
tary power. Tiie slave aristocracy would have gained its 
eway, would have tasted the intoxication of glory, and would 
no longer acknowledge any restraint. Conservative at home, 
but aggressive abroad, it would no longer be controlled by 
the cool and almost Britisli good sense of the mercantile 
North. With the impulse given to commerce by the return 
of peace, and therewith consequent prosperity, the confeder- 
acy, constituted as I describe it, would become a formidable 
power, and those who desire to see, more than aught else, a 
powerful State in Northern America, might give it their sym- 
pathies, if it had any chances of permanency. 

But here is the difficulty. You may do great things with 
Slavery : acquire fabulous wealth in a short time, as of old in 
St. Domingo ; call a whole population under arms, while the 
blacks till the ground, and so sustain a disproportionate strug- 
gle such as we now see going on in Virginia : but these are tran 
sient efforts, and in tlie long run, slavery exhausts, ruins, and 
demoralizes all that it touches. Compare the destinies of two 
great neighboring cities, Louisville and Cincinnati : compare 
the fate of the first, notwithstanding its immense natural ad- 
vantages, under the enervating influence of slavery, with the 
development which its rival owes to Liberty. The fate of 
Louisville would be that of a Slaveholding Union. 

The old Union, on the contrary, with its slow and prudent, 
but certain advance towards gradual emancipation, would 
have resembled Cincinnati. The old Union was a mercan- 
tile nation, furnishing Europe with the raw materials indis- 
pensable to her industry and offering her an unlimited market 
for her productions. This nation was useful to all the world, 
and whatever appearances may have been, it was not at bot 
torn hostile to anybody. 



J 

100 HIE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 

The iKMv Union ^vould be military and aggressive, a ccridi- 
tion of things favorable to some Powers, but unfavorable to 
others : the first was liberal and pacific ; the second would 
have no other spirit of progress, no other system of assimilation 
than the spirit k)^ war and the system of conquest. 

Such, we think, wnuld be the results of a Southern triumph. 
If on the other hand the conflict is to be })rolonged, if the 
solution of this great debate is still to be delayed, then we 
must look for mischief of another sort. Urged by the pas- 
sions and the pressure of the contest, the federal government 
may perhaps decree the immediate abolition of slavery, and 
may even be driven to the terrible resort of arming the slaves 
against their masters ; but this measure, independently of its 
barbarity and violence, would be of no use to those who 
should ado})t it. It would bring on in the jSTorth itself for- 
midable dissensions more likely to help than to harm the 
cause of the Secessionists. 

Xeed I add, that in the future seen under the aspect I have 
sketched, there is nothing whicli can meet the wishes of the 
friends of American liberty and greatness? When the block- 
ade of the Southern coast had become complete, when the 
whole course of the Mississippi had fallen into the power of 
the federal navy, those friends longed for the triumph of the 
Army of the Potonuic before llichmond, because it would 
have facilitated a complete reconciliation on the basis of the 
old Union. This triumph was not achieved ; we have seen 
why ; and reconciliation such as then was desirable and possi- 
ble, seems very dilierent to-day. Yet I am not one of those 
who will thence infer that the federal cause is lost. Com- 
parc(l to those of the South, the resources of the North are 
far iVuni being exhausted ; and who knows all that in a day 
of peril can be done by the energy of a fice people, battling 
i(>\ tliL' light and fur huiiianlfy ? 



r^ 



APPENDIX. 



Note A— Page 8. 
MILITARY PREPARATIONS OF THE SOUTH. 

The author here repeats in his estimate of the advantages 
with which the insurgent South began the war, an impression 
BO general at the North that it may be considered to have be- 
come ahnost an article of faith, yet which I am constrained 
to believe erroneous. The "permanent militia" of the South 
here alluded to existed only upon paper, like the similar militia 
of the North, There were, it is true, in two or three of the 
States, and particularly in South Carolina and in Virginia, 
small bodies of troops maintained at the public expense for 
the protection of important arsenals or other public works, 
but these were insignificant in point of numbers. The " State 
Guard " of Virginia numbered not more, I think, than forty 
men, whose chief duty was to sentinel the Richmond Peniten- 
tiary and to inspect the statue of Henry Clay on the Capitol 
Square. The organization of the Southern militia was very 
far from deserving the encomium here passed upon it. It w^as 
in- truth far inferior to the organization of the militia in cer- 
tain States of the North, and particularly in Massachusetts 
and New York. The regimental organization which had been 
carried to such a respectable point of development in New 
York was almost unknown in the South. A few independent 
companies like the "Blues" of Richmond and Savannah, the 
" Washington Light Infantry " of Charleston, the " Washing- 
ton Artillery" of New Orleans, and the "Richmond Howitzers" 

(101) 



102 APPENDIX. 

were as far advanced perhaps towards an adeqiate prepara- 
tion I'ur actual service when the war broke out, as any other 
militia companies in the country; but it is certain that in the 
whole South there were not so many well-drilled, uniformed, 
and efficient companies capable of acting together, regimen- 
tall}', as would have sufficed to put a regiment at once on a war 
tbotins:. The Seventh and the Seventv-tirst regiments ofKew 
York State Militia were bodies of men not to be matched in 
the South. 

The military schools of Virginia and of South Carolina had 
no doubt educated a certain number of young men in the 
course of the last ten years to a higher degree of preparation 
for the duties of officers in the field than was brought to the 
service of the nation by the average vohmteer officers of the 
armies first raised in tlie north ; and I believe there is no 
doubt that ^ir. Davis, Mr. Floyd, and particularly Mr. Henry 
A. Wise, did a great deal during the four years from 1856 to 
18G0 towards accustoming the Southern people to the idea of 
a more extensive jnilitary system than their manner of life 
and the geographical conditions of the country had previ- 
ously encouraged. The "John lirown raid" contributed 
powerfully to the success of these etibrts. 

But the first armies called into the field by the South were 
quite as unmilitary in organization and not so military in 
ap}n'arance as their contemi)oraries at the North. The con- 
trast between the hearing and equij)ment of tlie troops from 
Massachusetts, Yeiinont and New York, which I saw pass 
through New York in the Spring of 1861, on their way to 
Washington, and the army of General Johnston which I saw 
at llai'pei''s Ferry in June of that year, might almost luive 
excused the hasty self-conlidence with wliich the North rushed 
into the ()j)eration of " crushing out the rebellion." 

Tlie author is equally at fault in his further discussion of 
tliis 8ul>ject when he attributes to Mr. Davis the merit of 



rs 

APPENDIX. 103 

having solidified the southern army by his judicious appoiut- 
ments of officers. Li point of fact the uouiination of tlie line 

fficers of the southern vohmteer forces whicli still constitute 
the great bulk of the southern army is not, and never has 
been in the hands of Mr. Davis. These officers are elected 
by their men ; and it was a fact notorious in liichmond at 
the time of the battle of Fair Oaks that the chaotic condition 
into which the southern army fell, during that light and par- 
ticularly after the fall of General Johnston, was mainly at- 
tributable to the fact that in re-organizing the army in April 
and May, a vast proportion of the best officers of the line had 
been thrown out of commission in favor of others who had 
courted popularity by arts un-military, and who were wholly 
incompetent to the management of their troops. " Hierarchy 
and discipline " are things of very recent growth in the south- 
ern army. I have heard it stated, upon respectable authority 
Virginia, that at the battle of Bull Run, in July, 1861, 
whole battalions of southern troops deliberately marched out 
of the fight, precisely as the author describes some of Fitz- 
John Porter's regiments to have done at the battle of Gaines's 
Mills. 

Mr. Davis attempted, indeed, very early in the war to 
assume a general authority over the troops of the States. 
But he was met at the outset by the State authorities. At 
the head-quarters of General Johnston, to which I made a 
short visit in June, 1861, I saw for myself the difficulties 
thrown in the way of the confederate commanders, by the im- 
possibility of their doing precisely what the author commends 
them for doing. In Georgia, the issue between the confeder- 
ate and state organizations vv^as made very early and very 
decisively by Governor Brown. Colonel Bartow, (afterwards 
killed at Bull Run,) having received a confederate commission 
and raised a regiment of men, applied to the state for arms. 
These the Governor refused to snpply, declaring that Georgia 



104 APPENDIX. 

bhould anil no troops whom she did not commission and or- 
•-•anizL'. He slioidd not prc-vcnt J>:irtow from going to Virginia, 
with ;h iiiaiiv men us chose to folh>\v him, and when they 
reached N'irginia, if anybody Avoidd give tliem arms they 
might form tiiemselves into a regiment. But they would not 
be Georgian troops, and Georgia knew nothing about them. 
Colonel Bartow, raised (|uite a controversy over this matter, 
but the Governor was sustained ]>y the people, and Bartow's 
men (who by the way followed him galhmtly on the field of 
Manassas) were known as the " Independent regiment." 

Note B— Page 9. 

FLOYD AN'l) THE SOUTH. 

The Prince's charge against Mr. Buchanan's too famous 
Secretary, that ho sent "all the contents of the federal arsen- 
als to the South," is a clean case of crescit eundo. If the South 
had no positions more defensible than the character of Mr. 
l^'loyd, its conquest would indeed be easy : but that is no ex- 
cuse for extravagant misrc])resentations, which, if they have 
anv force at all, only help to relieve us of responsibilities 
■which we ought to accei)t. That Floyd would have been only 
too glad to send all the arms, and all ihe arsenals, too, of the 
country to the South, is doubtless true, but tiiere were obsta- 
cles in the way of either operation, and it has never yet been 
clearly proved that he deprived any Northern State of her 
just quota of arms to the advantage of any Southern State. 
Indeed, lie is Idamed at the South for not doing what he is 
blauKMl :it ihe Xurili [\<v doing; the simple fact being that he 
could not jtossilily do it. It was no doubt the opportunity 
and not the will which he lacked. Vov I remember that at 
AVasliington, in the winter of 18(]U Gi, just before Floyd went 
to Virginia, he did his i)est to ])ersuadc certain southern lead' 
ers into a plan foi- a rii-ing in ^VashiIlgton, or failing in that, 






APPENDIX. 105 

for AxQ seizure and removal to the South of General Scott. 
He Avas excessively disgusted at his inability to accomplish 
an organization for either purpose. 

President Davis, who detests Mr. Floyd, seized upon his 
conduct at the surrender of Fort Donelson as a good occasion 
for disgracing him, and ordered liim into arrest. He remain- 
ed for some time at his home in "Western Virginia, his particu- 
lar organ, the " Richmond Examiner," meanwhile grinding 
forth, almost daily, imprecations upon the confederate govern- 
ment for its neglect of the " great soldier who had kept Kose- 
crans chained to the Gauley," and the " great statesman who 
liad first warned the South to expect nothing from false and 
selfish England." The Legislature of the State was finally dra- 
gooned into providing for him. Authority was given him 
through the Governor, to raise ten thousand men, and he was 
commissioned a Major-General of Virginia. Whether he ever 
raised the men or not, I do not know. He had not done so 
three months ago. 

I mention these circumstances, because I observe that tlie 
"Richmond Examiner" is constantly quoted at the North, as 
the representative of southern sentiment in general, whereas 
it is a fact notorious in Richmond, and indeed self-evident to 
any person whose unfortunate destiny has ever put him in the 
way of a prolonged familiarity with southern journalism, that 
the "Examiner" is simply the mouth-piece of Mr. Floyd's 
disappointed ambitions, political, military and diplomatic. 

Note C— Page 11. 
THE EVACUATION OF MANASSAS. 

I HAVE reason to believe that when the history of the pre- 
sent war shall come to be written fairly and in full, it will be 
found that General Johnston never intended to hold Manassas 
and Centreville against any serious attack ; that his army at 



106 APPENDIX. 

these ])uiuts had sullerod i;Teutl y diirhiu' tlie autumn aud win- 
ter ot" 18U1-2 ; that from October to March, he never had an 
ett'ective force of more thai. 40,000 men under his orders ; 
that his preparations for an evacuation were begun as early 
as October, 16()1, and that after that time he lay there simply 
in observation. 

It was llie opinion of accomplished officers of the southern 
army, that the reduction of llichmond would never be really 
attempted excepting by the valley of the Shenandoah, in a 
campaign intended to cut off the capital and the army from 
their connections with the west by the James river canal, and 
the Virginia, aud Tennessee railways; or by the James and 
York rivers, in precisely such a movement as that which the 
Prince de Joinville states that it was the intention of General 
McClellan to make, had not his plans been disconcerted by 
the untimely and unnecessary revelation of them to wliich 
the Prince so delicately but so distinctly alludes. General 
D. JI. Hill expected the campaign of the Shenandoah, but, 
it is my impression that the majority of the confederate com- 
manders looked with more anxiety for the linal advance of 
McClellan in the direction wliich it now appears that it was 
his intention to follow. The confederate government, how- 
ever, scarcely anticipated any serious campaign from either 
quarter, and anmsed with di'cams of an early peace through 
the influence of European intervention and of politico-finan- 
cial causes at the North, kept Johnston's army in a position 
of observation on the Potomac, and utterly neglected all 
adetjuate preparations against such an expedition as the 
Prince relates General McClellan to have been silently pre- 
paring during the winter of lSGl-2. Tliere can l^e little 
doubt that the completion of the Merrimac in time to close 
the James river against our fleets, was cpiite as much a matter 
of chance as of design ; tlie Secretary of the confederate navy 
having small faith in the work, and the people at laig-e no 



SI 

APPENDIX. 107 

faitli at all. My own impression is, tliat the movement of 
General McClellan's army from its demonstrations along tlie 
Potomac to the base upon the James, selected for its opera- 
tions against Kichmond, could it have been put into execution 
as the author planned it, might well have proved so eminent- 
ly and brilliantly successful, as to take its place in }nilitary 
history with such openings of a campaign, as Moreau's pass- 
age of the Khine in 1800, and the Marshal de Saxe's sudden 
and magnificent transition from the demonstrations against 
Antwerp to the operations against Maestricht, in the Flemish 
campaign of 1748. 

Note D.— Page 59. 
CENSORSHIP OF THE SOUTHERN PRESS. 

The Prince only echoes a belief very general at the ITorth, 
when he speaks of the " Complete Censorship of the Southern 
Press," but this belief is certainly unfounded. It is a curious 
trait of the existing war that every attempt on the part of the 
Richmond government to exercise a centralized control over 
the institutions of the different seceded States has been in- 
stantly, and so far as I know, successfully repelled by public 
sentiment. Reporters for the press were excluded from the 
lines of the Southern armies in the field early in the current 
year, but this was a military measure, and was acquiesced in 
as such. A tacit agreement subsequently grew up between 
the War Depai'tment and the Press that great reticence should 
be observed in regard to military movements. But a propo- 
sition to establish a formal censorship, made in January or 
February, 1861, was instantly sneered and shouted down 
throughout the South, and wlien, not very long afterwards, 
the commander of the department of Henrico, Brigadier 
General Winder, permitted himself to threaten certain papers 
in Richmond with "suppression," he w\as met with open and 



108 APPENDIX. 

contemptuous defiance; and very prudently modified liis pro 
tensions with no unnecessary delay. AVliatever "censorship" 
exists at all in the South is a censorship of passion and not of 
power. 

Note E.— Page 63. 
RESPECT FOIi SOCTUERX PROPERTY. 

It is equally astonishing and unfortunate that the policy of 
forbearance in respect to the property and the persons of non- 
combatants in Virginia should ever have been the subject of 
unfavorable discussion in Congress. Aside from the abstract 
question involved, and from the moral influence of our prac- 
tice in this particular iipon the opinion of the world, it was 
only necessary to read the Richmond })apers to perceive how 
anxiously the southern leaders desired to see lis concede that 
disgraceful license of plunder and cruelty to the whole army 
which certain general oificers of the army of the Potomac are 
alleged to have put to profit, until the practice was prevented 
by peremptory orders from the General-in-Chief. Confederate 
officers, who served in AVestern Virginia, at the beginning of 
the war, testified strongly, in my hearing, to the '* bad effect" 
upon their men of General McClellan's forbearance and kind- 
ness towards the i)rlsoners whom he i)aroled after the defeat 
of General Garnett. Every instance of pillage -which oc- 
curred (luring the subscMpu'ut invasions in Virginia was sedu- 
lously magnified and pul)lislu'd throughout the South. The 
result of all this was two-fold ; it j)roduced upon the soldiers 
in the field ]»recisely the effect which Lord Dunmore aimed at 
in the early days of the llevolution, when he made the royal 
troops believe that ihey would be; scalped if they fell alive into 
the hands of the "shirtmen;" and it so influenced the pas- 
sions of the peoi)le against the northern " Hessians " as cruelly 
U> increase the Bufferings of (uii- ]irisoners. I have seen rhe 
fcoldicrs of the guar<l forced lo pi-otect prisoners in Richmond 



APPENDIX. 109 

from the insnlts and violence of the citizens, and it was noto- 
rious that any official attempt to treat the federal captives de- 
cently would be universally denounced as soon as it was 
made public. General Lee himself was insulted in one of the 
Richmond papers, because his wife liad accepted the protec- 
tion of General McClellan for her household and herself. 

Let me add that the private testimony of refugees in Rich- 
mond was almost unanimous as to the general good conduct 
of our troops, but this was as carefully suppressed, as was con- 
current testimony of the same kind to the damage inflicted 
upon the country people by their southern " defenders," 

Whatever the issue of the pending struggle may be, we 
ought to remember that pillage in war is after all simply open 
robbery. Probably none of us would take any particular pride 
in calling the attention of his guests to a silver teapot stolen by 
his grandfather from a farm-house during the invasion of 
Canada; and we may surely do our posterity the trivial jus- 
tice to believe that their respect for their ancestors will not be 
diminished by any display on our part of self-command, dig- 
nity, and reverence for those " holy bounds " of which Schil- 
ler sings so earnestly in his Wallenstein. 



Note F.— Page 65. 
OPENING OF JAMES RIVER. 

The author speaks of James river as " opened to the fed- 
eral navy" by the destruction of the Merrimac. This is per- 
fectly correct ; but it may be observed that James river was 
never closed to the federal navy till the Merrimac had been 
launched, proved and found far from wanting. The memo- 
rable panic occasioned in Richmond in April, 1861, by the 
news that the " Pawnee" was coming up the river, might have 
been supposed likely to point out to our own Government the 



110 ArPEXDTX. 

wisdom of trying the experiment of a naval excnrsion from 
Fortress ]\ronroe to Rocketts ; and to the confederates the pro- 
priety of fortifying tlie river banks. It produced neither the 
one nor the other effect. 

A con])k' of war steamers sent np the James when tlie army 
of McDowell advanced from Washington, might have neutral- 
ized the southern victory at Bull Run ; and I have the author- 
ity of a southern naval officer for saying that the banks of the 
James were never adeqnately protected against the passage 
of even a single powerful gunboat until the works at Drewry's 
Bluff were extemporized in May, 1862. These works were 
thrown np so hastily, and so little was known or believed at 
Richmond of their capacity to resist a serious attack, that the 
excitement wliicli reigned throughout the city during the dull 
gray morning of the day in which the heavy guns of the at- 
tack and defence were heard sullenly booming down the river, 
more nearly approached a })anic than anything else which I 
witnessed during the whole time of my detention there. 

Tlie preparations of the governments, state and confederate, 
for evacuating the city had been hurried forward with great 
earnestness from the time when the sacrifice of Norfolk and 
the Merrimac became a probable military necessity ; but there 
was such a conflict of couiicils in both governments that the 
successful passage of Drcwi-y's B.hitf woTild unquestionably 
have brought on a trenu^ndous general catastrophe. 



Note G.— P"ge 67. 
" THE PARTISAN JACKSON." 

It is singular cMMiii^rli tliai sd many even of those who ought 
to be well iiifoniKMl in respect to the history and present posi- 
tion of the soutlicrn leaders should persist in writing and talk- 
ing of " Stonewall .lackson " as a " partisan." lie is scarcely 



ff9 

APPENDIX. Ill 

a " J artisan," even in the political sense of that word, for he 
was by no means a Secessionist in his convictions or his sym- 
pathies, and only joined the sonthern forces in the field, as 1 
have been informed upon very respectable authority, from a 
religious sense of duty to his native State. I do not know that 
it is a greater stretch of charity to concede the possible exist- 
ence of an honest " rebel " than of an honest atheist, and if 
Stonewall Jackson may be supposed to be honest, he belongs 
to the not inconsiderable class of men in the South who would 
draw the sword at the behest of their State as readily against 
the government of Jefferson Davis as against that of Abraham 
Lincoln. A partisan, in the military sense, Jackson has never 
been. He was graduated at West Point with the class of 1842, 
served with distinction in Mexico, and holds the rank of Major- 
General in the regular army of the " Confederate States." The 
partisan service has not been popular in the South, and most 
of those leaders who won their first spurs as partisans in Ken- 
tucky and Virginia have passed into the regular service as fast 
as they could find or make room for themselves. Turner Ash- 
by was a confederate brigadier when he fell in battle, and 
John Morgan now holds that rank, his second in command 
being an experienced English officer. Colonel George St. Leger 
Grenfcll, who resigned his Queen's commission and left a lucra- 
tive post in India, came from Calcutta to Havana, and " ran 
the blockade " into Charleston to put his sword at the service 
of the South. 

Note H.— Page 6S, 
MCDOWELL'S RECALL FROM FREDERICKSBURG. 

The failure of the armies of McDowell and McClellan to 
unite before Richmond surprised the confederate command- 
ers in the latter city more, I think, than any one incident of 
the war. They had endeavored, of course, to bring it abo\it 



112 APPENDIX. 

tlioniili T liave some reason to doubt wlietlier it was tlio pri- 
mary object or ex])ectation of "Stonewall" Jackson in his 
dasliing Potomac campaign to effect this result. But it was 
not believed possible in Richmond for some days after it had 
demonstrably occurred. The cannon of Fitz-John Porter in 
the battle at Hanover Court House had sounded the knell of 
Richmond in the ears of those who knew the relative positions 
of the two federal armies. I was at that time living in a house 
on the extreme verge of Shockoe Hill, overlooking the line of 
the Virginia Central Railway, and on the 2Tth of May I re- 
ceived a visit from an European officer of distinction, then in 
Richmond, who brought me the news of what was going on, 
and said to me, " You will have the first view of the Yankees 
— they will march in on yonder lines ;" pointing to the roads 
which wound away from beyond the crest to our left in the 
direction of Hanover Court House and Ashland. At that 
time the foreign consuls in Richmond had made all necessary 
arrangements for protecting the property of their fellow sub- 
jects ; and almost every body who owned any tobacco or 
flour was eager to shift it, in one way or another, to the ac- 
count of foreign owners. The fall of the city was considered 
inevitable. 

Note I.-ragc n. 

FA Hi OAKS. 

TuE Prince's account of the condition of the confederates 
on the morning of June 1st, ratlier under llian overstates tlie 
case. They were in a perfect cliaos of brigades and regiments. 
The roads inlo liiclunond were literally crowded with strag- 
glers, some throwing away their guns, some breaking them on 
tlie trees — all with tlie same story, that their regiments had 
Ijcen " cut to jiieccs " — tliat the " Yankees were swarming on 
tlie (^hick;ili<iiiiiiiy like bees," and " figliliiig like devils." In 
two days of the succeeding week the provost-marshal's guard 



7^J 

APPENDIX. 113 

collected between 4,000 tmd 5,000 stragglers and sent Uiem 
into camp. What had become of the command of the army 
no one knew. By some persons it was reported that Major- 
General Gustavus W. Smith had succeeded Johnston, by 
others, that President Davis in person had taken the reins of 
the army. General Johnston himself was supposed to be 
either actually dead or dying. He had been twice hit before 
he received the final wound which struck him from his horse. 
In falling he had broken two of his ribs, was picked up sense- 
less and covered with blood, put into a hackney coach and 
driven to a house on Church Hill, where he lay between life 
and death for several weeks. The roads in the vicinity were 
covered with tan and all traffic interrupted by chains 
stretched across them near the house which he occupied. 

Had I been aware on that day of the actual state of things 
upon the field, I might easily have driven in a carriage 
through the confederate lines directly into our own camps. 
It was not indeed till several days after the battle that any- 
thing like military order was restored throughout the confed- 
erate positions, or the last of the wounded brought in from the 
recesses of the woods and the intricacies of the secluded path- 
ways in which they had lain dying a hundred deaths within 
four or five miles of the city and its hospitals. It is impossi- 
ble to exaggerate the difficulties attending a general action in 
such a country. One gentleman who distinguished himself 
by his assiduity in seeking and bringing in the wounded from 
the field, told me that on three difierent occasions, within as 
many days, he had been forced to pass by wounded men, his 
carriage being absolutely filled and he walking by its side, 
that on each occasion he had noted as well as he could the 
position of the sufferers, and that on each occasion when he 
returned to seek for them he was compelled to give up the 
search in despair, so absolutely impossible was it to identify 
particular paths in that labyrinth of swamps and trees. 



114 APrSNDIX. 

I do not think tlie Prince exaggerates tlie losses of the 
enemy in tliis sanguinary fliglit. There were publislied in the 
Richmond papers, detailed brigade and regimental reports of 
the losses in sixty out of seventy-two organizations, regiments, 
battalions and companies mentioned as taking part in the en- 
gagements. I coni2)uted these losses as they were j^ublished. 
The sum total was 6,732 killed, wounded and missing. The 
" Richmond Enquirer" nevertheless, which had published these 
very lists, relying I suppose upon the arithmetical indolence 
of its readers, coolly announced the entire loss of the confed- 
erates on the 31st May and 1st June to have been but 2,300 
men ! The official report was about 4,300. 

As to the rain storm of May 30th, the Prince may well 
speak of it as " terrible." N'ever, even in the tropics, have I 
seen a more sudden and sweeping deluge. The creek which 
flowed at the bottom of the hill below the house in which I 
lived, and over which in ordinary times, a boy might easily 
leap, filled the valley on the morning of May 31st, with a 
shallow lake more than 100 yards in width. 

Many confederate officers consoled themselves for the re- 
sults of the battle of Fair Oaks, or Seven Pines as it is called 
at the South, by the consideration that in wounding General 
Johnston, and so compelling ]\[r. Davis to allow the command 
of the main army iu the field to devolve upon General Lee, 
the federals hud rendered them a great service. This was be- 
cause the southern army under Johnston, was known to bo 
suffering severely in numbers and morale from the same lax- 
ity in organization lor which the Prince, in so friendly a 
K]>irit, finds fault witli our own forces. Lee was considered, I 
'bhould say, to have more of the talent essential for organiza- 
tion than anv man in the service of the South. 



APPENDIX. 115 

NOTE K .— Page 85. 
TBE SEVEN DAYS' BATTLES. 

The phases of public feeling and of military opinion in 
Riclnnond daring the progress of the operation by which 
General McClellan transferred his army from the Chickahorai- 
ny to the James, were highly interesting to me at the time, 
and it may be v»"orth while for me briefly to describe them 
now. 

Let me premise by stating however, that the Prince is cer- 
tainly in error, when he speaks of General Beauregard as 
" lending the assistance of his capacity and his prestige " to 
the Southern army at this critical moment. General Beaure- 
gard was then at Eufaula, in Alabama, recruiting his health, 
shattered by two arduous campaigns, one in the East and one 
in the West. Yery few, if any of the troops from his army 
were in Virginia. Reinforcements had been coming into the 
city for several days previously to the 2oth, in very consider- 
able numbers, but they appeared to me to be mainly made up 
of new troops, and were generally understood to be so. 

Of the battle with Hooker on the 25th, in which the con- 
federates were defeated, nothing was heard in Richmond save 
the sound of the cannonade, and to that we had all become 
so much accustomed as not to be much excited thereby. The 
negroes, who always, by son.e mysterious system of commu- 
nication with the surrounding country, contrived to have news 
in advance of the published accounts, and whose reports I 
generally found to be quite as accurate as those of the " Dis- 
patch " and the " Examiner," whispered indeed on the morn- 
ing of the 26th in the servants' halls, from which the stor;y 
soon ran up stairs, that something not altogether agreeable 
had happened the day before. But the popular rumor was, 
that a slight skirmish had taken place, with the inevitable re 
suit of " fckedaddled " and captured Yankees. 



lie APPENDIX. 

About oiglit o'clock on the evening of the n^ xt day, tlic 26th, 
when al'ter four liours of tlie nearest and most vivid firing, 
botli witli great guns and musketry tliat had yet been heard, 
the Mdiite wi'caths t>l' tlie curling cannon-smoke began to be 
drifted by the wind up the Shockoe valley into the heart of 
the city, and the smell of the gun-powder could be plainly 
perceived in Cajutol S(|uare, ali'airs took a more serious turn. 
I witnessed the light of this evening mj'self from a favorable 
position on the outskirts of the city. I saw the confederate 
lines recoil, and our own artillery advance until between 
eight and nine o'clock. I began ti) think that v/e had really 
I'eached the crisis of the siege, and that Hichmond was on the 
point of falling into the hands of the army of the Union. A 
young officer of artillery, a West Poir.ter from the old army, 
and belonging then to a detached corps of the C. S. A., who 
joined me in my post of observation about that time, and 
recognized with me tlie fact that the confederates were fight- 
ing on a line considerably in the rear of the positions which 
they had held about four p. m., borrowed my glass, looked 
long and earnestly through the deepening twilight on the scene 
before us, and then, turning to me, said in a hurried way, — 
•' they will certainly be here to-night," and then, half laughing 
with an air of somewhat affected indificrence added, as he tap- 
]>ed his light grey uniform coat, " hadn't I better take this off 
and 'skedaddle' to Danville?" 

liy nine o'clock, however, and, so far as we could see, with 
no change in the relative strength of the firing on either side, 
the federal artillery still maintaining its plain and tremendous 
pre|»oiuk'rance — the line of the federal fire began to recede. 
['>y half-jiast nine the affair was over, and after an hour or two 
of spasnuMlic and still receding discharges, mainly of shell, 
which burned in magnificent curves against the darkening 
sky, e^/erything was once more qr.ict. 

The next day was an anxious cue to the people of Rich- 



9^ 

APPENDIX. 117 

inoiul. It was evident now that a general action was either 
imniiLcnt 3r actually in progress. The stories from the battle 
field of Gaines's Mill came in, announcing a great victory, and 
anxiety gradually turned into exultation, which grew as the 
prisoners began to arrive in small squads, and the people be- 
came convinced that the army of McClellan was actually re- 
treating. 

For the next day or two, this mood was in the ascendant, 
and nothing was talked of but the capture or annihilation of 
the whole "invading horde." Much was made of the two 
captured Generals Eeynolds and McCall, who naturally grew 
into four, five or six, according to the strength of the speak- 
er's patriotism, and of his imagination. General McClellan 
was killed three or four times, and General Sumner was cer- 
tainly wounded and a prisoner at Savage's station. 

Jackson's corps, which had not been engaged as the Prince 
seems to suppose on the 26th with McCall, tlie fight of that 
day being maintained on the confederate side by the troops 
of A. P. Hill and Longstreet in the advance, had come into 
action upon the federal retreat on the 28th, and this intelli- 
gence of itself w^ould have sufliced to convince the most 
skeptical that the doom of the Yankees was sealed, and that 
the tobacco warehouses of Richmond would be too small to 
contain the prisoners that were about to arrive. 

By the 30th, however, it began to be whispered that all was 
not going satisfactorily. It was then known to a few that 
McClellan had not been cut to pieces in detail ; that on the 
contrary, he had succeeded in effecting the concentration of 
his whole army, and was moving on a line of retreat whicli, as 
it was not thoroughly understood, might perhaps, prove to be 
a new line of advance. The fearful tidings of the repulse and 
slaughter at Malvern Hill at last forced its way through the 
popular hope and passion, and the news that the gunboats in 
the river ha 1 joined their fire with that of the artillery of 



118 APPENDIX. 

the iL'doral land forces converted the rejoicings of the Vir- 
j^inians into doubts and disappointments. For some time it 
was supposed McClelhiu woukl resume his attack on the line 
of tlie Charles City road ; then, that he would shift his whole 
force to the south side and throw himself irresistibly from City 
point u])on Petersburg. The results of the terrible six days' 
ligliting were not regarded as at all decisive, and General Lee, 
while honored for his success in relieving the immediate pres- 
sure upon tile city, and in "chastising the Yankees" tre- 
mendously, was loudly charged with having been outwitted 
by an adversary whose escape he ought to have rendered im- 
possible. 

The final movement which transferred the whole federal 
army from Harrison's Landing to the Potomac, and which 
was going on when I left Kichmond was hardly credited at 
that time in that city. It was certainly felt that if real, it 
would be a substantial relief from all formidable operations 
against the place, at least for the next year. 

As to the confederate forces engaged in these sanguinary 
battles Ijefore Hichmond, it is my impression that the armies 
united n;idcr Lee before the arrival of Jackson from the Shen- 
andoah, numbered 90,000 men ; and the Prince's estimate of 
Jackson's force at 30,000, T take to be not far from the truth. 

The prisoners taken from our army, including the wounded, 
whom we were forced to abandon, were estimated at between 7 
and 8,000, of whom only about 4,500, however, were actually 
known to have been sent on to Richmond. On their own 
side, the most candid and best-informed confederates admitted 
a total loss in killed, wounded, and missing of about 1G,000 
men. 



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